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John H. Ritter

John H. Ritter grew up in the foothills of eastern San Diego County. He and his brothers built their own baseball diamond in the chaparral countryside while their grandmother entertained them with ballroom boogie-woogie on the piano. A poet, songwriter, blues guitarist, and former shortstop for the University of California, San Diego, John often incorporates the symbolism of baseball and the musicality of nature’s rhythms into his prose. Known for layering sports drama with real-life predicaments, John’s metaphorical first novel, Choosing Up Sides, won the 1999 International Reading Association Children’s Book Award for Older Readers and was designated an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. In 2004, he received the Paterson Prize for Children’s Literature for his third novel, The Boy Who Saved Baseball. John and his wife, Cheryl, now divide their time between California and the island of Kauai. You can visit John H. Ritter at JohnHRitter.com.

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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