With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2021-22 academic year.  We’ve compiled a list of over 460 programs and their title selections, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2021-22. We will continue to update this listing to provide the most

Penguin Random House Common Reading Virtual Author Events  June 9th, 2022 Click Here to RSVP Penguin Random House Education would like to invite you to attend our Summer Virtual Author Event for Common Reading, which will take place on June 9th, 2022, from 1:00-2:00 pm ET (10:00-11:00 am PT) featuring live presentations by Anita Hill, Elizabeth

Ian Manuel, author of My Time Will Come, was sentenced to life without parole at 14 years old. His memoir is a paean to the capacity of the human will to transcend adversity through determination and art—in Manuel’s case, through his dedication to writing poetry. Here is his poem, “Genie in a Bottle”:   I’m

“I believe that in order to heal, we must remember. Once we remember, we acknowledge. Once we acknowledge, we can take more significant action.”   Watch Dolen Perkins-Valdez discuss her inspiration for writing Take My Hand:   Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African

By David Laskin   After a long career successful in narrative nonfiction (The Children’s Blizzard, The Long Way Home, The Family), I decided a few years ago to jump the fence to fiction. My first novel, What Sammy Knew, is the story of a high school senior named Sammy Stein who, in the first months

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2022 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 Saturday Event Saturday, February 12, 2022 | 8:00 – 9:30 pm EST

Contributed by Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future “I’m a realist,” Ruth Gates was saying. “I cannot continue to hope that our planet is not going to change radically. It already is changed.” Gates, then the head of Hawaii’s Institute of Marine Biology, had taken me out to

Dr. Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist, physician, and professor at Harvard Medical School, passed away on February 21, 2022, in Butaro, Rwanda. Dr. Farmer was the subject of Tracy Kidder’s 2003 book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. The book is an account of the difference

Salt in My Soul is Mallory Smith’s posthumously published memoir, the collected diaries of a remarkable young woman who was determined to live a meaningful and happy life despite her struggle with cystic fibrosis and a rare superbug—from age 15 to her death at the age of 25. Mallory’s story of resilience has resonated in classrooms across

Educated,  now available in paperback, is an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University. One of the most acclaimed books of our time, it has been taught in classrooms across the country and been selected for common

Contributed by Katharine K. Wilkinson, co-editor of All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis “I was shaking as I read the opening essay because I felt so empowered,” one of my students shared at the start of the fall 2020 semester. I’d spent the previous nine months co-editing the bestselling

On Thursday, November 11th 2021, Penguin Random House Education hosted a special event for common reading. Moderated by Spenser Stevens, PRH Education Marketing Manager, the event featured:   Senator Mazie K. Hirono, author of Heart of Fire Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us Michael Sayman, author of App Kid Judith Heumann, author of Being Heumann

Contributed by Thomas Mullen, author of The Last Town on Earth: A Novel Authors are usually thrilled when our work is considered particularly resonant for today, but this isn’t quite what I had in mind. When I began writing The Last Town on Earth nearly two decades ago, I was intrigued by the setting of