Common Reads: Freshman Year Reading
Hoping to unite a college community in thought and discussion, colleges and universities across the nation participate in Common Reads, or First-Year Reading programs, assigning incoming freshman classes the same book to read over the summer. Our Common Reads study guide collection of fiction and nonfiction works spans a wide range of topics, from politics and memoirs to world history and social justice issues. We hope this collection serves as a resource for inspiring energetic discussions in the fall semester and helping students get the most out of their freshman-year experience.
A Few Good Men is a play written by Aaron Sorkin and first performed in 1989. The story involves a military lawyer who defends two Marines accused of murder. The play was well-received, and Sorkin adapted it into a screenplay for the film of the same name (released in 1992), which was a popular and critical success.Plot SummaryA Few Good Men opens as two Marines, Downey and Dawson, recall the details of a nighttime incident... Read A Few Good Men Summary
Published in 2016, A Gentleman in Moscow, by American author Amor Towles, is the story of Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian nobleman who, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, is sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel. The Count must adjust not only to his new circumstances in a small room in the hotel’s belfry but also to the knowledge that his way of life is disappearing under the Bolshevik regime. As the years... Read A Gentleman in Moscow Summary
American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures (2018) is an essay collection edited by actress and activist America Ferrera with E. Cayce Dumont. The collection contains essays from notable individuals in movie and TV entertainment, food, publishing, public service, comedy, music, and self-help content creation. These first-person accounts all address the often troublesome question of what it means to be American, especially when growing up between different cultures. American Like Me is a New... Read American Like Me Summary
A Sand County Almanac is a 1949 nonfiction book by the American naturalist and writer Aldo Leopold. The book is structured as a series of essays, beginning with Leopold’s description of a year on his farm and progressing to a series of essays on humanity’s relationship with nature, culminating in an argument for an ethical approach to the land. Published by Oxford University Press a year after Leopold’s death, the book is credited with having... Read A Sand County Almanac Summary
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is a work of creative nonfiction originally published in 1988. Kincaid shares memories of her home country, Antigua, both while it was under colonial rule and self-governance. She illustrates how life has and hasn’t changed for Antiguan citizens because of government corruption, the legacies of slavery, and the preoccupation with tourism over public welfare. Though the book won no awards, Kincaid has won a plethora of awards for her... Read A Small Place Summary
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was written in pieces from 1771 to 1790. The work was first published in 1791 in Paris, France, after Franklin’s death as The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin. The autobiography was then published in London in 1793. In his writing, Franklin reflects upon his academic, professional, and philosophical pursuits. He examines how he advanced his economic and social standing during the formation of the United States, covering from... Read Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Summary
One of the great corporate frauds of the 21st century, the Theranos blood-test scam, is brought to light in the award-winning bestseller Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, published in 2018 and updated in 2020. Author John Carreyrou, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal, brings his years of experience to the case against tech startup Theranos and its spellbinding CEO, Elizabeth Holmes. The Vintage Books... Read Bad Blood Summary
Born a Crime is a comedic autobiographical work chronicling Trevor Noah’s childhood growing up in South Africa. Published in 2016, it became a New York Times Bestseller, and it’s currently being adapted into a film. Born a Crime doesn’t follow a linear timeline; rather, the narrative jumps around, offering anecdotes from Noah’s past. Before each chapter begins, there’s a prologue that’s related to the content of the upcoming chapter. Usually, these sections provide historical facts... Read Born a Crime Summary
Written in 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a nonfiction book by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The work examines modern botany and environmentalism through the lens of the traditions and cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Through a series of personal reflections, the author explores the connection between living things and human efforts to cultivate a more sustainable... Read Braiding Sweetgrass Summary
Breath, Eyes, Memory is a novel by Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat, first published in 1994. The book is semi-autobiographical: like the protagonist, 12-year-old Sophie Caco, Danticat herself was born in Haiti but moved to the United States at a young age. She has since written several novels and short stories about Haiti, immigration, and the complex ways that one’s identity is formed by where they are from and where they now live. The novel... Read Breath, Eyes, Memory Summary
Brown Girl Dreaming (2014) is a memoir in verse by Jacqueline Woodson, a children’s and young adult fiction writer. Published by Nancy Paulsen Books, a division of the Penguin Group, the memoir won the National Book Award, the Newberry Honor Book Award, and the Coretta Scott King Award.Plot SummaryBrown Girl Dreaming covers Woodson’s childhood, detailing her family history and her beginnings as a writer. Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio, on February 12, 1963, the... Read Brown Girl Dreaming Summary
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High (2002) was written by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, and Ron McMillan. It has become a cornerstone of the field of interpersonal communication and self-improvement, offering insights into the dynamics that govern our most vital conversations. Both Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny are leading authorities on organizational change and have advised some of the world’s largest organizations. Al Switzler is a renowned speaker and... Read Crucial Conversations Summary
Disgraced, by Ayad Akhtar, premiered in Chicago in 2012. Later that year, the play opened Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center. Disgraced won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2013, opened on the West End in 2014, and made its Broadway premiere in 2015. Like the main character, Amir Akhtar is the son of Pakistani-American immigrants and was born in the United States. His work addresses the experience of being Muslim in America and the way Islamophobia... Read Disgraced Summary
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (Bloomsburg Press, 2015) is a nonfiction book by American journalist and writer Sam Quinones. It won the NBCC Award for General Nonfiction and was on Amazon’s list of best books of the year in 2015 as well as Slate’s list of the 50 best books of the past 25 years. In the book Quinones charts the parallel rise of prescription opiates and black tar heroin, and describes... Read Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic Summary
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—And Why Things Are Better Than You Think, written by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, was published by Flatiron Books in 2018. This book examines how people across cultures view the world through a negative lens, which leads them to believe conditions everywhere are declining. Doctor and global health expert Hans Rosling offers research and anecdotes from his medical experience and his lectures to unpack... Read Factfulness Summary
Angela Duckworth’s best-selling 2016 book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance describes how persistent practice, and not mere talent, is the key to success among students and professionals. Duckworth’s extensive research demonstrates that young people do best in activities that hold their interest and give them a sense of purpose. This encourages them to practice hard and overcome obstacles until they achieve mastery and success in school and, later, in their professional lives. The... Read Grit Summary
Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 book for young adults, written by Salman Rushdie. Haroun is the follow-up to Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, which was deemed blasphemous by the Ayatollah (a high-ranking Iranian clergyman) at the time, who pronounced a death sentence on the author. As a response to the ayatollah’s decree, Haroun explores themes of free speech, the need for storytelling, and the value of fiction.Plot SummaryThe novel begins with... Read Haroun and the Sea of Stories Summary
Heartland (2018) is both a memoir of Sarah Smarsh’s upbringing in rural Kansas as the daughter of working-class people and an exploration of the class system in America today. The book is subtitled: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth; this hits the core of the book, as Smarsh seeks to use her family’s anecdotes and memories to get to the truth of why mostly honest, hardworking people... Read Heartland Summary
While many know the story of the sinking of the Titanic, fewer have heard the story of the Essex, a whaling ship that was sunk after being repeatedly rammed by an enormous whale during a whaling expedition in 1820. At one time, however, the story of the Essex was the most famous story of maritime tragedy in the United States, even inspiring certain aspects of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Nathaniel Philbrick’s account of the journey... Read In the Heart of the Sea Summary
I, Robot, a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, is a set of stories about the first robotic machines and the problems and pitfalls of living with and working alongside them. The book is the first in a series of several novels about robots; it is famous for its Three Laws of Robotics that govern machine behavior, and for its device, the positronic brain, which contains a robot’s conscious intelligence.Asimov (1920-1992) is one of the... Read I, Robot Summary
Part memoir, part exhortation for much-needed reform to the American criminal justice system, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy is a heartrending and inspirational call to arms written by the activist lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based organization responsible for freeing or reducing the sentences of scores of wrongfully convicted individuals. Stevenson’s memoir weaves together personal stories from his years as a lawyer with strong statements against racial and legal injustice, drawing a clear... Read Just Mercy Summary
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive is Stephanie Land’s first book. Land is a former professional house cleaner whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Her writing explores issues related to systemic poverty, the hardships and stigmas associated with social services, surviving in the gig economy, and the challenges of motherhood. Maid was originally inspired by a Vox article she wrote about... Read Maid Summary
Maus by Art Spiegelman is the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It originally ran in Spiegelman’s Raw magazine between 1980 and 1991 before receiving mainstream attention as two collected volumes, Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991. This guide is based on the 1996 complete edition. This historic memoir interlaces two narratives, one of Spiegelman’s Jewish father as he survives World War II Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, and... Read Maus Summary
One of the founding documents of Western philosophy, Plato’s Meno recounts a dialog on the nature of virtue between Socrates and his pupil Meno, a rising star among the leaders of ancient Greece. They discuss how virtue can be recognized, where it comes from, and whether it can be taught.Meno takes place in 402 BCE in Athens; Plato, Socrates’s most famous student, in 385 BCE wrote down his recollection of the conversation. It offers a... Read Meno Summary