2025 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,

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Videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2024 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 19th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST This event

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message

The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. I Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world. —James Baldwin

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Donald A. Norman’s Design for a Better World

How human behavior brought our world to the brink, and how human behavior can save us. The world is a mess. Our dire predicament, from collapsing social structures to the climate crisis, has been millennia in the making and can be traced back to the erroneous belief that the earth’s resources are infinite. The key

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unCommon Authors, an Author Video Series: VICTIM by Andrew Boryga

PRH Education/Common Reads presents: unCommon Authors unCommon Authors is a monthly video series highlighting exceptional and unique authors talking about their books.   There’s a fine line between bending the truth and telling bold-faced lies, and Javier Perez is willing to cross it. Victim is a fearless satire about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through

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Register for the 2025 Penguin Random House First-Year Experience® Conference Author Events!

Penguin Random House Author Events at the 44th Annual First-Year Experience® Conference February 16-19, 2025 New Orleans, Louisiana Hyatt Regency New Orleans 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

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What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2024-25

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 336 programs and their title selections, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2024-25. We will continue to update this listing to provide the

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Keith Payne’s Good Reasonable People

There has been much written about the impact of polarization on elections, political parties, and policy outcomes. But Keith Payne’s goal is more personal: to focus on what our divisions mean for us as individuals, as families, and as communities. This book is about how ordinary people think about politics, why talking about it is

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Immaculata De Vivo and Daniel Lumera’s The Biology of Kindness

The science is in: being good is actually good for you. In this bracingly original book, The Biology of Kindness—the first in a trilogy on the topic of daily wellness—the science of mindfulness and the findings of biology come together to show how kindness and optimism improve overall well-being in profound, organic, and demonstrable ways. Daniel

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unCommon Authors, an Author Video Series: FIRE IN THE CANYON by Daniel Gumbiner

PRH Education/Common Reads presents: unCommon Authors unCommon Authors is a monthly video series highlighting exceptional and unique authors talking about their books.   Fire in the Canyon is a novel from National Book Award nominee Daniel Gumbiner about a California grape-grower, his family, and the climate disaster that upends their quiet lives.  

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s What If We Get It Right?

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures. Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the

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Unearthing Organic Farming History While Reconnecting with My Punjabi/Cali Roots

A Q&A with Jaclyn Moyer In 2012, twenty-five-year-old Jackie Moyer—the daughter of a forbidden marriage between a white American father and a Punjabi American mother—leased 10 acres of land in Gold Hill, California, and embarked on a career in organic farming. With a fractured relationship to her heritage, Moyer saw an opportunity for repair when she learned

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Banned Books Week: A Letter to Employees, from PRH CEO Nihar Malaviya

The following message was sent by PRH CEO Nihar Malaviya to all employees on the second day of Banned Books Week 2024:   September 23, 2024 Hi everyone, Welcome to Banned Books Week! At a time when the freedom to read is under attack, it is more important than ever to celebrate the books that

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Daisy Hernández’s A Cup of Water Under My Bed

PEN Literary Award–winning author Daisy Hernández “writes with honesty, intelligence, tenderness, and love” about her Colombian-Cuban heritage and queer identity in this poignant coming-of-age memoir (Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street). A heartfelt exploration of family, identity, and language, A Cup of Water Under My Bed is ultimately a daughter’s story of finding herself and

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