After his father’s death, Esau McCaulley went back through his family history, seeking to understand the community that shaped him: someone who, through hard work, faith, and determination, overcame childhood poverty, anti-Black racism, and an absent father to earn a job as a university professor and a life in the middle class. With profound honesty

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2023-24 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 351 programs and their title selections, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2023-24. We will continue to update this listing to provide the

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

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is a poet’s account of one of the world’s most urgent humanitarian crises, and a harrowing tale of a family’s escape from genocide. One A Phone Call from Beijing I keep returning to the first day of 2013. That evening, I received an unexpected call from Ilham Tohti, an economics

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2024! From award-winning fiction and memoir to new books about science, technology, history, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages, but also excited for the chance to discuss

In Solito, a young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine.   Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the PEN/Open Book Award Finalist for

Two-time world champion debater and former coach of the Harvard debate team, Bo Seo tells the inspiring story of his life in competitive debating and reveals the timeless secrets of effective communication and persuasion.   1. Topic How to find the debate On a Monday morning in January 2007, a couple of months after my graduation

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,’

The PRH CommonReads Advisory Board Convenes Virtually On April 26, 2023, the Penguin Random House First-Year Reading Advisory Board convened for their annual summit. 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. PRH Education received valuable information

By: Kristen Joiner “So, you’ve been a feminist and worked in human rights your whole career?” Judy Heumann asked me the first time we met to discuss the possibility of writing her memoir. “Right.” “And you never knew disability was a civil rights issue?” Since I’d already owned up to this, I nodded again. “So,

In Life on Delay, Hendrickson offers new insight into a disorder that has for decades been mocked, mischaracterized, and misunderstood. Through a layered and unguarded narrative, he takes the reader inside the intricate family dynamics surrounding his stutter, and he explores the history of stuttering treatment, the current search for a “cure,” and the nature of self-acceptance.