Description of the need
Often time I hover the User accounts item on the admin bar just to realize it's only for adding new users and managing existing ones, and that in order to manage other user configurations (such as account settings, login settings, permissions, roles, fields, etc) I need to hover Configuration and then User account instead.

Personally I find the current locations of user configuration links at two different places confusing.
Proposed solution
To disambiguate the current state of user-configuration links, I propose to move the User accounts sub-menu link from Configuration to under the top level User accountslink and re-name it to something else (not to have two User accounts links). For example, we could rename it to Configure user accounts as shown on the screenshot:

Recent comments
If choosing the Views approach you can also use https://backdropcms.org/project/eva which allows you to place the list with more flexibility.
Backlinks for Entity Reference?
Thanks. It still took a lot of trial and error for all the settings within the settings, but I eventually got it to display based on these instructions.
Backlinks for Entity Reference?
Another easy way to do this is to use the module Corresponding Entity References (cer). You would need to add an entity reference field in the authors content type pointing at the book, then set...
Backlinks for Entity Reference?