Albert Samaha, author portrait
© Brian De Los Santos

Albert Samaha

Albert Samaha is an investigative journalist and inequality editor at BuzzFeed News whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Village VoiceSan Francisco Weekly, and the Riverfront Times, among other outlets. A Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient, he is also the author of Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City, which was a finalist for the 2019 PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing Award and winner of the New York Society Library’s 2019 Hornblower Award. He lives in Brooklyn.
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Register for the 2026 Penguin Random House First-Year Experience® Conference Author Events!

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

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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 284 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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