Jay Caspian Kang, author portrait
© Evan Groll

Jay Caspian Kang

Jay Caspian Kang is a staff writer at The New Yorker and an Emmy-nominated documentary-film director and the author of The Loneliest Americans. Prior to joining The New Yorker, he was an opinion writer for the New York Times, and his work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, “This American Life,” and the New York Times Magazine. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2024 for his New Yorker work. He lives in Northern California with his family.

Books

The Loneliest Americans

Videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 17th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST   This

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What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2025-26

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 291 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2025-26. We will continue to update this

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2026 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2026! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about the environment, current events, history, public health, science, social justice, student success, and technology, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through

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