2021 Catalogs for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year reading catalogs for 2021! From award-winning fiction and memoir to new books about science, technology, history and current events, the titles presented in our college reading catalogs will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages, but also excited for the chance to discuss their reading

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You’re Invited: Join Us for a Big Ideas Night on the Crucial, Timely Topic of Criminal Justice Reform

Join us on Wednesday, October 21 at 8:00 PM ET on Zoom for a crucial, timely Big Ideas Night on Criminal Justice Reform with a panel of expert authors: Brittany K. Barnett, attorney, entrepreneur, and author of A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom; Emily Bazelon, New York Times Magazine staff writer and author of Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End

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What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2020-21

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2020-21 academic year.  We’ve compiled a list of over 470 programs and their title selections, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2020-21. We will continue to update this listing to provide the most

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Register for the 2021 Penguin Random House First-Year Experience® Conference Virtual Author Events!

Penguin Random House Author Events at the 40th Annual First-Year Experience® Conference February 15-19, 2021 Click Here to RSVP PRH virtual events are open only to registered FYE® conference attendees. To register for the conference, click here. Once registered for the conference, be sure to sign up for each event that you plan to attend in advance to receive login

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Riverhead Recommends: Black Voices for First-Year Reading

Founded in 1994, Riverhead Books publishes bestselling literary fiction and quality nonfiction. Throughout its history, Riverhead has been dedicated to publishing extraordinary groundbreaking, unique writers including Danielle Evans, Danzy Senna, and James McBride. Collected here are some works from Black writers published by Riverhead. Their stories articulate the Black experience in America and give voice

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DISABILITY VISIBILITY is an urgent collection of contemporary essays by disabled people

Activist Alice Wong presents a galvanizing collection of thirty-seven essays by disabled people just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her

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An Absolutely Remarkable First-Year Reading Guide

It may not be surprising to hear that Hank Green—brother to John Green and co-creator of Vlogbrothers, Crash Course, and SciShow—thinks about the Internet a lot. It makes plenty of sense, then, for his debut novel to ask some big questions about how we connect online. “Sparkling with mystery, humor and the uncanny, this is

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Colson Whitehead has won his second Pulitzer Prize for THE NICKEL BOYS

Colson Whitehead has won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Nickel Boys. This is his second Pulitzer Prize (his novel The Underground Railroad won in 2017) and he is only the fourth writer—alongside Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike—to win two Pulitzer Prizes each in the Fiction category. Winner, ALA Alex Award Winner,

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Restorative ocean farmer Bren Smith discusses the future of food through creating a sustainable environment

Bren Smith, author of Eat Like a Fish: My Adventures Farming the Ocean to Fight Climate Change and executive director of Greenwave gives an inside view of the process of ocean farming and its potential to save the planet in two informative videos. In “This Incredible underwater farm could be the future of food” produced

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Videos from the 2020 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

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

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The PRH First-Year Reading Advisory Board Convenes in D.C.

On February 20, 2020, the Penguin Random House First-Year Reading Advisory Board convened for their annual summit the day before The First-Year Experience® Conference exhibit and sessions commenced. The Board members, representing a variety of public and private higher education institutions of varying sizes, came together to exchange ideas, and provide feedback and guidance. Our

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CONFERENCE PREVIEW: First-Year Experience®

The Annual Conference of The First-Year Experience provides an ongoing forum where higher education professionals can share experiences, concerns, and accomplishments related to supporting student learning, development, and success within their first year of college. The conference aims to promote a comprehensive and engaging community open to a diversity of ideas, in which all delegates

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