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 286 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

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

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

Browse these new and notable titles for use in your First-Year and Common Reading program. To request complimentary exam copies for course-use consideration, click here. 

Browse these new and notable titles for use in your First-Year and Common Reading program. To request complimentary exam copies for course-use consideration, click here. 

Browse these new and notable titles for use in your First-Year and Common Reading program. To request complimentary exam copies for course-use consideration, click here. 

Contributed by Jacqueline Novogratz, author of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World. Chronicling her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it through the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, this book is a

Long before the search for a COVID-19 vaccine, the visionary, Hungarian-born biochemist Katalin Karikó knew that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world. Karikó worked for more than three decades at her lab bench, in the single-minded pursuit of a breakthrough that would confirm her hunch: that mRNA could transform ordinary cells into tiny factories

We are very pleased to share that Oldenburg Academy of the Immaculate Conception in Oldenburg, Indiana, selected Convicted: An Innocent Man, the Cop Who Framed Him, and an Unlikely Journey of Forgiveness and Friendship by Jameel Zookie McGee and Andrew Collins with Mark Tabb for the student body to read over the summer. English Teacher

Contributed by Malaina Kapoor, co-author of Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education. A searing, deeply personal memoir of a tenacious Afghan girl who educated herself behind closed doors and fought her way to a new life, the book has received advance praise from Bill Gates, Sal Khan, and

By Courtney Walker, Campus Librarian at Skaggs Elementary School in Plano ISD When times are tough, we must continue to find and spread HOPE. I am the campus librarian at Skaggs Elementary School in Plano ISD, and this year I hosted my campus’ first after school book club. When selecting a book, I knew that

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka has been chosen as the 2023 selection for Seattle Reads. The Seattle Public Library provides information on the program: “Founded in 1998, Seattle Reads is a city-wide book group, where people are encouraged to read and discuss the same book. Originally called ‘If All of Seattle Read the Same Book,’