Register for the 2026 Penguin Random House First-Year Experience® Conference Author Events!

By Coll Rowe | October 8 2025 | College & University Reads

Penguin Random House Author Events at the 45th Annual First-Year Experience® Conference

February 15-18, 2026
Seattle, Washington
Hyatt Regency Seattle
Click Here to RSVP

A complimentary meal and a limited number of books will be available to attendees. Each event will also be followed by an author signing.

Interested in hosting one of these authors at your school?
Contact us to learn more!

 

Learn more about the authors’ books below:

On Basketball and Ascension
9780593448809

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • His lifelong love of basketball leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of success, excellence, and role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling.

Paperback

Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America
9780385549615

From Slate staff writer Aymann Ismail comes an exquisite memoir about fatherhood, religion, and the search for identity in an ever-shifting world.

Hardcover

A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
9780593656730
From one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the forces eroding America’s social fabric, Beth Macy’s most personal and powerful work: a reckoning with the changes that have rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown.
Hardcover

How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World
9780593735909

Adam Met, Columbia University professor and member of the multiplatinum band AJR, shows how your students can apply fan-building strategies from the music industry to message effectively about causes they care about and rally others to help them achieve shared goals.

Hardcover

The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves
9780593443491

Alison Wood Brooks—a celebrated Harvard Business School professor and leading expert on the psychology of conversation—shows why conversing a little more effectively can make a big difference in the quality of our close personal relationships as well as our professional success.

Hardcover

A Memoir of Trauma, Healing, and the Outdoors
9780593657133
The Chair and The Valley is a raw, gut-wrenching, and amazing story about healing from trauma and starting over. It is a exploration of the importance of chosen family, the restorative power of nature, and the strength it takes to build a new life in the face of fear and doubt.
Hardcover

9780593320785

A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today, and the director of the Oscar®-nominated documentary, SugarcaneWe Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence.

Hardcover

A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land
9798217086511
Two lifelong peace activists and guides to Israel/Palestine, both of whom have lost family in the conflict, take readers on a revealing life-changing journey across this holy, bloodstained land and discover the mythic, political, and personal history that divides but also binds them and their peoples.
Hardcover