Brandon Hobson

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 340 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2024-25. We will continue to update this

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,

We’re pleased to share videos from the First-Year Experience® Conference held in Washington, D.C. this past February. 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 Dinner Friday, February 21, 2020

Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson explores the themes of loneliness and trauma as a young Native American boy named Sequoyah experiences life in the foster care system. This 2018 National Book Award Finalist is about a broken teenager’s search for his identity and the hardships of being displaced. Sequoyah lives his life always keeping his feelings buried, until he is placed with the Troutt family. There he meets Rosemary, a friend and confidant who, like him, is a Native American child living in the foster care system.