Penguin Random House, author portrait placeholder image

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is an American author and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award as well as the Orange Prize for Fiction, both for her novel Bel Canto. Her other books include The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Run, State of Wonder, and Commonwealth.

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

Read more

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

Read more

New Documentary Following the Life and Career of George Orwell

Orwell: 2+2=5 is a 2025 documentary film, directed and produced by Raoul Peck. It follows the life and career of George Orwell, and how his political observations are still relevant in present day, particularly the lessons from his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.   George Orwell (1903–1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and

Read more