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Freshman Reading/First Year Experience
Suggested titles for college common book programs as part of the Freshman First Year Experience
1.
This Burns My Heart
A Novel
By: Samuel Park
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: March 6, 2012
2.
The Big Thirst
The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water
By: Charles Fishman
This edition: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publication date: February 14, 2012
The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Rather than only three states of water—liquid, ice, and vapor—there is a fourth,...
3.
History of a Suicide
My Sister's Unfinished Life
By: Jill Bialosky
This edition: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publication date: February 7, 2012
“It is so nice to be happy. It always gives me a good feeling to see other people happy…It is so easy to achieve.” —Kim’s journal entry, May 3, 1988 On the night of April 15, 1990, Jill...
4.
The Pregnancy Project
A Memoir
By: Gaby Rodriguez
with: Jenna Glatzer
This edition: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publication date: January 17, 2012
Ages: above 14
It started as a school project…but turned into so much more.Growing up, Gaby Rodriguez was often told she would end up a teen mom. After all, her mother and her older sisters had gotten pregnant as teenagers; from an...
Other Formats: eBook
5.
An Invisible Thread
The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny
By: Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski
Foreword by: Valerie Salembier
This edition: Hardcover, 272 pages
Publication date: November 1, 2011
“Excuse me lady, do you have any spare change? I am hungry.”When I heard him, I didn’t really hear him. His words were part of the clatter, like a car horn or someone yelling for a cab. They were, you could say,...
6.
Steve Jobs
By: Walter Isaacson
This edition: Hardcover, 656 pages
Publication date: October 24, 2011
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as...
7.
It Calls You Back
An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing
By: Luis J. Rodriguez
This edition: Hardcover, 336 pages
Publication date: October 4, 2011
Hundreds of thousands of readers came to know Luis J. Rodríguez through his fearless classic, Always Running, which chronicled his early life as a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los...
8.
Kisses from Katie
A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption
By: Katie J. Davis
with: Beth Clark
This edition: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publication date: October 4, 2011
What would cause an eighteen-year-old old senior class president and homecoming queen from Nashville, Tennessee, to disappoint her parents by forgoing college, break her little brother’s heart, lose all but a handful of...
9.
Invisible
A Memoir
By: Hugues de Montalembert
This edition: Trade Paperback, 144 pages
Publication date: September 20, 2011
“You live in a city like New York. You read the papers. You look at the television. But you never think it will happen to you. It happened to me one evening.” One summer night in 1978, Hugues de Montalembert returned...
10.
The New Kids
Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens
By: Brooke Hauser
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication date: September 20, 2011
Some walked across deserts and mountains to get here. Others flew in on planes. One arrived after escaping in a suitcase. And some won’t say how they got here.These are “the new kids”: new to America and all the...
11.
Grand Pursuit
The Story of Economic Genius
By: Sylvia Nasar
This edition: Hardcover, 576 pages
Publication date: September 13, 2011
In a sweeping narrative, the author of the megabestseller A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through modern history with the men and women who changed the lives of every single person on the planet. It’s the epic...
12.
All Things Shining
Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age
By: Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly
This edition: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publication date: August 9, 2011
“What constitutes human excellence?” and “What is the best way to live a life?” These are questions that human beings have been asking since the beginning of time. In their critically acclaimed book, All...
13.
Choke
What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To
By: Sian Beilock
This edition: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: August 9, 2011
Why do the smartest students often do poorly on standardized tests?Why did you tank that interview or miss that golf swing when you should have had it in the bag?Why do you mess up when it matters the most—and how can...
Other Formats: eBook
14.
The Memory Palace
By: Mira Bartok
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: August 9, 2011
When piano prodigy Norma Herr was healthy, she was the most vibrant personality in the room. But as her schizophrenic episodes became more frequent and more dangerous, she withdrew into a world that neither of her daughters...
15.
Rock the Casbah
Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World
By: Robin Wright
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication date: July 19, 2011
A decade after the 9/11 attacks, this groundbreaking book by a preeminent reporter takes readers deep into the struggle within the Muslim world where a growing movement defies and challenges extremism and repudiates Osama bin...
16.
A Stolen Life
A Memoir
By: Jaycee Dugard
This edition: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publication date: July 12, 2011
When Jaycee Dugard was eleven years old, she was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was missing for more than eighteen years, held captive by Phillip Craig and Nancy...
17.
Yellow Dirt
An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
By: Judy Pasternak
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: July 5, 2011
Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed Yellow Dirt, “will break your heart. An enormous achievement—literally, a piece of groundbreaking investigative journalism—illustrates exactly what reporting should...
18.
A Renegade History of the United States
By: Thaddeus Russell
This edition: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publication date: July 5, 2011
“Raucous, profane, and thrillingly original, Thaddeus Russell’s A Renegade History of the United States turns the myths of the ‘American character’ on their heads with a rare mix of wit, scholarship, and...
19.
Unbearable Lightness
A Story of Loss and Gain
By: Portia de Rossi
This edition: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publication date: July 5, 2011
Now in paperback, the New York Times bestselling memoir from Portia de Rossi explores the truth of her long battle to overcome anorexia and bulimia—“an unusually fresh and engrossing memoir of both Hollywood and...
20.
Nothing Daunted
The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West
By: Dorothy Wickenden
This edition: Hardcover, 304 pages
Publication date: June 21, 2011
Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood attended grade school and Smith College together, spent nine months on a grand tour of Europe in 1910, and then, bored with society luncheons and chaperoned balls and not yet ready for...
21.
Learning to Die in Miami
Confessions of a Refugee Boy
By: Carlos Eire
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: June 7, 2011
In his 2003 National Book Award–winning memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire narrated his coming of age in Cuba just before and during the Castro revolution. That book literally ends in midair as...
22.
Empire of the Summer Moon
Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
By: S. C. Gwynne
This edition: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publication date: May 10, 2011
In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest...
23.
Just Like Us
The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America
By: Helen Thorpe
This edition: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publication date: May 3, 2011
Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. We meet the girls on the eve of their senior prom in Denver, Colorado. All four of the girls have grown up in...
24.
Catch-22
By: Joseph Heller
This edition: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publication date: April 5, 2011
Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a cornerstone of American literature and one of the funniest—and most celebrated—books of all time. In recent years it has been named to “best...
25.
Cycling Home from Siberia
30,000 miles, 3 years, 1 bicycle
By: Rob Lilwall
This edition: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publication date: April 5, 2011
“It is late October, and the temperature is already –40 degrees . . . My thoughts are filled with frozen rivers that may or may not hold my weight; empty, forgotten valleys haunted by emaciated ghosts; and packs of...
Other Formats: eBook
26.
Breakfast with Socrates
An Extraordinary (Philosophical) Journey Through Your Ordinary Day
By: Robert Rowland Smith
This edition: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publication date: March 15, 2011
Ever want to have a bagel with Hegel? Eggs with Bacon? Or spend a day with Socrates, Mill, Herodotus, or Kant, able to pick their brains about the most mundane moments of your life? Former Oxford Philosophy Fellow Robert...
27.
The Story of Stuff
How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change
By: Annie Leonard
This edition: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publication date: February 22, 2011
The Story of Stuff, now available in paperback, offers an astonishing, galvanizing exploration of the stuff we use every day, revealing how overconsumption threatens the planet and our health, and providing hope that change is...
28.
Tattoos on the Heart
The Power of Boundless Compassion
By: Gregory Boyle
This edition: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publication date: February 22, 2011
“Destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality” ( Los Angeles Times )— Tattoos on the Heart is a series of parables about kinship and redemption from pastor, activist, and...
29.
The Madonnas of Echo Park
A Novel
By: Brando Skyhorse
This edition: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publication date: February 8, 2011
The Madonnas of Echo Park is both a grand mural of a Los Angeles neighborhood and an intimate glimpse into the lives of the men and women who struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the American dream. Each...
30.
Half Broke Horses
A True-Life Novel
By: Jeannette Walls
This edition: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publication date: September 7, 2010
“Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping...
31.
A Moveable Feast
By: Ernest Hemingway
This edition: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publication date: July 20, 2010
Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway’s most enduring works. Since Hemingway’s personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined the changes made to the text...
32.
On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition
A Memoir of the Craft
By: Stephen King
This edition: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publication date: July 6, 2010
“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and...
33.
Once a Runner
A Novel
By: John L. Parker Jr.
This edition: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: April 6, 2010
Originally self-published in 1978, Once a Runner captures the essence of competitive running—and of athletic competition in general—and has become one of the most beloved sports novels ever published..Inspired by...
34.
Little Bee
A Novel
By: Chris Cleave
This edition: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: February 16, 2010
WE DON'T WANT TO TELL YOU TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach...
35.
The House at Sugar Beach
In Search of a Lost African Childhood
By: Helene Cooper
This edition: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publication date: July 21, 2009
Helene Cooper is “Congo,” a descendant of two Liberian dynasties—traced back to the first ship of freemen that set sail from New York in 1820 to found Monrovia. Helene grew up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room...
36.
Oxygen
A Novel
By: Carol Cassella
This edition: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publication date: June 9, 2009
Now in paperback, Carol Cassella’s riveting national bestseller that seamlessly melds compelling women’s fiction and medical drama to create an “involving debut that’s just what the doctor ordered”...
Other Formats: eBook
37.
Telex from Cuba
A Novel
By: Rachel Kushner
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: June 2, 2009
Rachel Kushner has written an astonishingly wise, ambitious, and riveting novel set in the American community in Cuba during the years leading up to Castro's revolution—a place that was a paradise for a time and for a...
38.
Three Little Words
A Memoir
By: Ashley Rhodes-Courter
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: May 5, 2009
Ages: above 14
"Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those...
39.
Tweak
Growing Up on Methamphetamines
By: Nic Sheff
This edition: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publication date: January 6, 2009
Ages: above 15
Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and Ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always...
40.
The White Tiger
A Novel
By: Aravind Adiga
This edition: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: October 14, 2008
The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of...
Other Formats: eBook
41.
The Black Male Handbook
A Blueprint for Life
By: Kevin Powell
This edition: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publication date: September 9, 2008
The Black Male Handbook is a collection of essays for Black males on surviving, living, and winning. Kevin Powell taps into the social and political climate rising in the Black community, particularly as it relates to Black...
Other Formats: eBook
42.
Falling Man
A Novel
By: Don DeLillo
This edition: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publication date: June 3, 2008
There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally the years. Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-the-century America. It begins in the smoke and ash of the...
43.
Copper Sun
By: Sharon M. Draper
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: January 1, 2008
Ages: above 14
M. Sindy Felin's National Book Award finalist is in paperback for the first time. Karina has plenty to worry about on the last day of seventh grade: finding three Ds and a C on her report card again, getting laughed at by...
Other Formats: Hardcover
44.
Lies My Teacher Told Me
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
By: James W. Loewen
This edition: Revised & updated Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publication date: October 16, 2007
Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent...
45.
Born On A Blue Day
Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
By: Daniel Tammet
This edition: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publication date: October 16, 2007
Born on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today—guided by the owner himself. Daniel Tammet is virtually unique among people who have severe autistic disorders in that he is capable of...
Other Formats: eBook
46.
1 Dead in Attic
After Katrina
By: Chris Rose
This edition: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publication date: August 21, 2007
1 Dead in Attic is a collection of stories by Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, recounting the first harrowing year and a half of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Celebrated as a local treasure and heaped with...
47.
Generation Me
Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before
By: Jean M. Twenge
This edition: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: March 6, 2007
Called “The Entitlement Generation” or Gen Y, they are storming into schools, colleges, and businesses all over the country. In this provocative new book, headline-making psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean...
Other Formats: eBook
48.
Sun Also Rises
By: Ernest Hemingway
This edition: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publication date: October 17, 2006
The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst...
49.
Soul Surfer
A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board
By: Bethany Hamilton and Rick Bundschuh
with: Sheryl Berk
This edition: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publication date: June 6, 2006
They say Bethany Hamilton has saltwater in her veins. How else could one explain the passion that drives her to surf? How else could one explain that nothing—not even the loss of her arm—could come between her and...
50.
The Glass Castle
A Memoir
By: Jeannette Walls
This edition: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: January 9, 2006
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among...
51.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
By: Richard Bach
This edition: Trade Paperback, 112 pages
Publication date: January 3, 2006
This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets...
52.
Always Running
By: Luis J. Rodriguez
This edition: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publication date: September 6, 2005
By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder,...
53.
A Bed of Red Flowers
In Search of My Afghanistan
By: Nelofer Pazira
This edition: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publication date: September 6, 2005
Written with compassion, intelligence, and insight, A Bed of Red Flowers is a profoundly moving portrait of life under occupation and the unforgettable story of a family, a people and a country. “The picnic of the red...
Other Formats: eBook
54.
My Sister's Keeper
A Novel
By: Jodi Picoult
This edition: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publication date: February 1, 2005
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a...
55.
The Great Gatsby
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
This edition: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publication date: September 30, 2004
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy...
56.
Frankenstein
By: Mary Shelley
This edition: Enriched Classic Mass Market Paperback, 352 pages
Publication date: April 27, 2004
ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIPA timeless, terrifying tale of one man's obsession to create life—and the monster that became his legacy. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:• A concise...
57.
Random Family
Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
By: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
This edition: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publication date: January 19, 2004
In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner...
58.
Waiting for Snow in Havana
Confessions of a Cuban Boy
By: Carlos Eire
This edition: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publication date: December 24, 2003
“Have mercy on me, Lord, I am Cuban.” In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba—exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution. The memories of Carlos's...
Other Formats: eBook
59.
A Separate Peace
By: John Knowles
This edition: Trade Paperback, 208 pages
Publication date: October 7, 2003
Set at a boys’ boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual....
Other Formats: Hardcover
60.
Bowling Alone
The Collapse and Revival of American Community
By: Robert D. Putnam
This edition: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publication date: July 31, 2001
Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans’ changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures—whether they be PTA, church, or political...
Other Formats: eBook
61.
Tis
A Memoir
By: Frank McCourt
This edition: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publication date: August 28, 2000
Frank McCourt’s glorious childhood memoir, Angela’s Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit and its profound humanity. A tale of redemption, in which storytelling itself is...
62.
Angela's Ashes
By: Frank McCourt
This edition: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publication date: May 25, 1999
“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the...
63.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
By: Stephen Chbosky
This edition: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publication date: February 1, 1999
Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor. This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut...
Other Formats: eBook
64.
Kaffir Boy
The True Story Of A Black Youths Coming Of Age In Apartheid South Africa
By: Mark Mathabane
This edition: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publication date: October 7, 1998
The Classic Story of Life in Apartheid South Africa Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police...
65.
Undaunted Courage
Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
By: Stephen E. Ambrose
This edition: Trade Paperback, 528 pages
Publication date: June 2, 1997
In this sweeping adventure story, Stephen E. Ambrose, the bestselling author od D-Day, presents the definitive account of one of the most momentous journeys in American history. Ambrose follows the Lewis and Clark Expedition...
66.
A Farewell to Arms
By: Ernest Hemingway
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: June 1, 1995
The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Hemingway’s frank...
67.
Old Man and the Sea
By: Ernest Hemingway
This edition: Trade Paperback, 128 pages
Publication date: May 5, 1995
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway’s most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal—a relentless,...
68.
Warriors Don't Cry
Searing Memoir of Battle to Integrate Little Rock
By: Melba Pattillo Beals
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publication date: February 1, 1995
In 1957, Melba Pattillo turned sixteen. That was also the year she became a warrior on the front lines of a civil rights firestorm. Following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, Melba was one...