I was born in Cameroon and moved to the United States after high school to attend college. Having never been that far from home, I was extremely homesick in my first months in the country (it didn’t help that the weather was too cold for my liking). That all changed when I arrived at college.

In a new Ted Talk entitled “Solving Illegal Immigration [For Real],” decorated journalist and author Sonia Nazario suggests an alternative method to naturalization or heavy border policing to stem the flow of undocumented individuals into the United States. Nazario boasts a long and impressive writing career, during which she has shown immense dedication to featuring

EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid is an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands. The talented New York Times bestselling author also narrated his own audiobook. Join Hamid in the studio as he discusses the universality of the migration experience,

On Thursday, March 16th, the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and BuzzFeed announced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah as the winner of the inaugural “One Book, One New York” program. Throughout February, nearly 50,000 votes were cast for this first-of-its-kind competition. And, in the coming months New Yorkers will be encouraged

On the evening before the National Book Awards ceremony, The New School hosts a reading with the finalists. Don’t miss this exquisite reading by the audio narrator of the 2016 winner.

Dion Graham has become a familiar voice to both adults and children for his riveting reads of important and beloved books. Hear why he loves “falling into a story” and listen to clips from his recent recordings including RUSA Listen List and Carnegie Medal Winner, EVICTED by Matthew Desmond.

On February 1st, New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and BuzzFeed announced the launch of “One Book, One New York,” the first ever community reading program for New York City. “

Many times, when communities consider books for a common reading experience, they are taking into account the entire makeup of their group or groups of people. This undoubtedly includes families with young children and/or teenagers, and what better way to bring this collective group together than to appeal to all age groups? When a book

By Emily Esfahani Smith, author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters (Crown, January 2017) When I was a senior in high school, I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life: I was going to be a doctor. I loved science, and easing the suffering of others, I

By Wayne Maines, father of Nicole Maines.  The Maines family is the focus of Amy Ellis Nutt’s Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family (Random House, October 2015) Recently I had the opportunity to speak at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. Before the lecture I spent an hour walking around their beautiful campus, thinking

By Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Crown, March 2016) I began this project because I wanted to write a different kind of book about poverty in America. Instead of focusing exclusively on poor people or poor places, I began searching for a process that involved poor and well-off

Welcome to the new Common Reads website!  Featuring a highly-curated list of titles from across all publishing divisions of Penguin Random House, this site was created and designed to help you find the right book and the right resources for your school reading program. Whether you are an educator or a librarian looking for an