Freshman Year Reading 2011 Catalog by Random House

BEACON PRESS THE CROWN PUBLISHING GROUP Broadway Crown Crown Business Crown Forum Doubleday Image/Religion/ Business Harmony Monacelli Ten Speed Press Three Rivers Press Watson-Guptill WaterBrook/Multnomah Fodor’s Princeton Review DC COMICS HATHERLEIGH PRESS KUPERARD MARK BATTY PUBLISHER MELVILLE HOUSE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS NORTH ATLANTIC BOOKS OSPREY PUBLISHING OTHER PRESS

FResHman YeaR ReadIng 2011 R e c om me nded T iT le s

POWERHOUSE BOOKS RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

INCLU

Best Prac DES: Program tices & from the ming Ideas Random

THE RANDOM HOUSE PUBLISHING GROUP Ballantine Bantam Del Rey Delacorte Dell Delta Dial Press ESPN Modern Library One World Presidio Random House Spiegel & Grau Villard RIZZOLI SHAMBHALA SMITHSONIAN BOOKS SOHO PRESS STEERFORTH PRESS VERTICAL WELCOME BOOKS

Random House, Inc.

House First-Yea Advisoryr Reads Board

From Our Desk to Yours . . . dear Freshman Year Reading director: As a leading book publisher we firmly believe in the importance of engaging in a dialogue with you and drawing upon your feedback to better guide our eﬀorts. erefore, with this seventh edition of our annual Freshman Year Reading catalog, we are proud to oﬀer the knowledge, creativity, and experience of our inaugural Random House First-Year Advisory Board. e Random House First-Year Advisory Board was launched in the summer of 2010 with an intensive two-day summit at our new York city headquarters. e board members—dr. Rebecca P. campbell of northern Arizona University, dr. steven Girardot of Georgia institute of Technology, and dr. daphne Rankin of Virginia commonwealth University—met with a variety of publishing professionals, including editors, publicists, marketers, and sales representatives, to learn more about the publishing industry and to discuss the needs of common reading program facilitators. in addition to attending these meetings, board members also took part in roundtables about topics such as Best Practices, ideas for programming, and how to best share program experiences with others. e board also examined our Freshman Year Reading catalog and generated numerous ideas for its improvement, many of which have been implemented in this edition. in particular, we hope that you find the addition of a “Key Facts” box useful. is informational section highlights important points about each featured text in a color-coded, bulleted fashion, so you can easily identify what you need to know about a particular book or author. Key points such as which schools have previously selected the book, the book’s key themes, and the author’s availability for campus visits are listed there. Also included in this year’s catalog is a special two-page “Best Practices” spread, created with the input of the Advisory Board as well as our authors. in addition to this print resource and our common Reads blog, we have also extended our digital social media network with a common Reads Facebook page and Twitter account. Please refer to the facing page to find these communities on the web. in addition to providing important news and updates on these sites, we also occasionally give away free books! As this year unfolds, we will continue to utilize the expertise of the Random House First-Year Advisory Board; their invaluable feedback and input will help us to serve you better and support you in your programming. Please dive in to our improved catalog and join us on the web. We look forward to continuing the dialogue. sincerely, Authors chat with attendees and sign books at the 2010 Random House First-Year Experience® (FYE) Luncheon

michael d. Gentile director, Academic marketing Random House, inc. 1745 Broadway new York, nY 10019 Tel. (212) 782-8387 Fax (212) 940-7381 mgentile@randomhouse.com

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Featured Authors at the 2010 Random House First-Year Experience® (FYE) Luncheon. Clockwise from left: Bill Strickland, Thomas Mullen, Dana Canedy, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Warren St. John

CONTENTS life stories—memoir, Biography, and Autobiography ............................................................2 Fiction to Talk About ..................................................................................................................24 inspiration and Guidance ..........................................................................................................34 Best Practices and Programming ideas ......................................................................centerfold History and society ....................................................................................................................42 life & college Guides..................................................................................................................52 Go Green ......................................................................................................................................56 social Action ................................................................................................................................60 Philosophy ....................................................................................................................................65 money matters ............................................................................................................................66 christian interest ........................................................................................................................68 index ..............................................................................................................................................70 order Form ..................................................................................................................................74 Legend HC = Hardcover • TR = Trade Paperback • MM = Mass Market • NCR = No Canadian Rights

examInatIon CopIes examination copies are available to instructors seeking titles to review for adoption consideration. The exam copy prices are as follows: $3.00 for each paperback priced under $20.00, and 50% off the retail price for all hardcovers and paperbacks priced at or over $20.00. examination copies are limited to ten per instructor per school year and can only be mailed to valid U.s. addresses. To order, use the order form at the back of this catalog. examination copies must be prepaid with a check or money order made payable to Random House, inc., or order online at www.randomhouse.com/academic/examcopy. offer only valid in the United states. All requests are subject to approval and availability. Please allow 2–4 weeks for delivery.

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FIST STICK KNIFE GUN

To view trailer and official website for the documentary Waiting for ‘Superman,’ featuring Geoffrey Canada, go to: www.WaitingForSuperman.com

A Personal History of Violence By Geoffrey Canada

A new edition, including the story of the founding of Harlem children’s Zone

l New Updated Edition

ong before President Barack obama praised his work as “an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort that is literally saving a generation of children” and First lady michelle obama called him “one of my heroes,” Geoffrey canada was a small, scared boy growing up in the south Bronx. His childhood world was one where “sidewalk boys” learned the codes of the block and were ranked through the rituals of fist, stick, knife, and, finally, gun.

“a more powerful depiction of the tragic life of urban children and a more compelling plea to end ‘america’s war against itself’ cannot be imagined.” —The New York Times Book Review “a slim, revealing volume that should be required reading for anyone who has ever negotiated the complicated hierarchy of ‘rep’ and revenge on city streets.” —Boston Globe

Also available: Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-8070-4461-2 | 192pp. $14.00/$16.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Themes: Coming of Age, Perseverance, Regionalism: New York/Urban Interest Discussion Guides: Teacher’s Guide Available Alternative Formats: eBook

FIST STICK KNIFE GUN A Personal History of Violence A True Story in Black and White

NEW

By Geoffrey Canada; Adapted by Jamar Nicholas in a stunning pairing, acclaimed comics creator Jamar nicholas presents canada’s raw and riveting account, one of the most authentic and important true stories of urban violence ever told. “Geoﬀrey Canada’s realistic yet hopeful voice finds fresh expression through the comic style of Jamar Nicholas. Canada’s account of his childhood and the role that violence played in shaping his experiences provides hard-won and crucial lessons.” —Pedro A. Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University

“Jamar Nicholas is a master of his craft—his drawings are full of life and truly —Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World stunning.” “I wish every city had a Geoﬀrey Canada.”

—President Bill Clinton

Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-8070-4449-0 | 144pp. | $14.00/$16.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook

About the Author: Geoﬀrey canada geoFFReY Canada grew up in the South Bronx. Since 1990 he has been the president and chief executive officer of Harlem Children’s Zone, an organization that offers a comprehensive range of services to over 10,000 children in a nearly 100-block area of Central Harlem. Harlem Children’s Zone has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Nightline, and has been recognized in The New York Times. In October 2005 Canada was named one of “America's Best Leaders” by U.S. News and World Report. He is featured in the film Waiting for ‘Superman.’

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Geoffrey Canada When my memoir, Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence, was first published in 1995, it told the story of my life growing up in the south Bronx as both a victim of violence and as a perpetrator for my own survival. Things in my neighborhood and in many neighborhoods across the country have not improved since i was young. in fact, they’ve grown worse. Violence has always been a problem, but it has never been as deadly as it is today. in 2009, the children’s defense Fund reported that nearly nine children and teens are killed every day as a result of gun violence. With more guns and more drugs available on the streets than ever before, what chance do kids today have of surviving, let alone thriving, in the world that has been provided for them? This year my publisher, Beacon Press, has released a revised edition of Fist Stick Knife Gun, updated to reflect some of the work that has been done over the last fifteen years. At Harlem children’s Zone, where i am now the president and ceo, we have grown to serve nearly one hundred city blocks, reaching more than ten thousand children with free programming and support. one way that we accomplish this is by placing trained and caring adults in the middle of these underserved communities, in order to let these children know that they are not alone out there. in Fist Stick Knife Gun i describe what it was like for me to be in the middle of the violence, with nowhere to run and no one to turn to. in the years since i wrote it, i have worked to protect the children who are still trapped in that difficult place. in addition to the revised edition of my memoir, Beacon Press has also released a new graphic novel adaptation of Fist Stick Knife Gun by cartoonist and illustrator Jamar nicholas. This new version brings the book into the twenty-first century in a fresh and exciting way. it offers a new tool for understanding the circumstances and psychology of the children who must face violence every day. The problem of youth violence cannot be solved from a distance. While i believe it is essential that people begin to understand the crisis that our children face, it is more important that they start taking steps to protect them. i hope that these two new editions of Fist Stick Knife Gun will inspire today’s students, parents, activists, and concerned citizens to take these steps. When i was in college, i was absolutely focused on one thing: how to improve the outcomes for the kinds of kids i knew growing up. i still dream of the day that we find the answer to that question. Jamar nicholas and geoﬀrey Canada at the Random House second annual author event for nYC educators

Geoffrey Canada

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS By Tracy Kidder

Website: www.TracyKidder.com To view video of Tracy Kidder’s presentation at the 2009 First-Year Experience® Conference in Orlando, FL, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yaud5t6

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award Now in paperback

Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7761-5 | 304pp. $16.00/$19.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading: Caldwell College, Penn State Berks, Stanford University, University of Delaware, and others. Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Global Citizenship, Human Rights, Perseverance/Personal Strength, Transition Discussion Guides: Teacher’s Guide Available Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

racy Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of the college common reading program classic Mountains Beyond Mountains, has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the “master of the nonfiction narrative.” in this new book, Kidder gives us the superb story of a hero for our time. deo arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. Having survived a civil war and genocide, and plagued by horrific dreams, he lands at JFK airport with two hundred dollars, no knowledge of the english language, and no contacts. He ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in central Park and learning english by reading dictionaries in bookstores. Then deo meets the strangers who will change his life, eventually pointing him in the direction of columbia University, medical school, and a life devoted to healing. With Strength in What Remains, Kidder breaks new ground, telling an unforgettable story as he travels back with deo over a turbulent life in search of meaning and forgiveness.

“that 63-year-old tracy kidder may have just written his finest work—indeed, one of the truly stunning books I’ve read this year— is proof that the secret to memorable nonfiction is so often the writer’s readiness to be surprised. deo’s experience can feel like this era’s version of the ellis Island migration. deo is propelled, so often, by pure will, and his victories . . . summon a feeling of restored confidence in human nature and american opportunity. then we plunge into hell. Having only glimpses of deo’s past, we suddenly get a full-blown portrait. kidder’s rendering of what deo endured and survived just before he boarded the plane for new York is one of the most powerful passages of modern nonfiction.” —Ron Suskind, The New York Times Book Review “tracy kidder’s new book Strength in What Remains is . . . narrative infused with a broad, universal appeal and occasional touches of brilliance. He offers us fine prose, complex characters, and realistic portrayals. deo’s resilience, his struggle to overcome adversity strikes a chord in all of us. His story reaffirms our hope that one person can make a difference . . . [t]his book is one not to be missed.” —Seattle Times “It is a mark of the skill and empathy of mr. kidder, a pulitzer prizewinning author, that he makes deo’s story come alive believably— as the experience of a real individual—and avoids . . . the usual tropes of a triumph-of-the-human-spirit tale. [t]he book encourages a general hope that individuals can transcend even the greatest horrors.” —The Wall Street Journal

About the Author: tracy Kidder tRaCY kIddeR graduated from Harvard University, studied at the University of Iowa, and served as an army officer in Vietnam. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He lives in Massachusetts and Maine.

www.CommonReads.com

101 George Read North University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716-1106 Phone: 302-831-3330 Fax: 302-831-4053

First Year Seminar

A Message from the First Year Seminar Director at the University of Delaware dear colleagues, The University of delaware chose Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains as its First Year common Reader in 2010. Strength in What Remains is the story of deogratias (deo), a young medical student from the central African nation of Burundi, who fled the ethnic violence in Burundi and genocide in Rwanda and was transported to new York city. deo succeeded against all odds, graduating from columbia University, and subsequently returned to Africa. A truly remarkable story of survival, despair, determination, evil, and kindness, the book was chosen by an advisory committee comprised of faculty, students, advisors, and student life staff who believed that it would provide a unique opportunity for students to consider issues related to that part of the world and to begin addressing questions about personal meaning, transition, and passion. The committee also felt that the book would encourage our students to consider what it means to be a global citizen. The choice proved extremely popular among the first year students, and the entire University of delaware community engaged in a number of events related to the book. Author Tracy Kidder and the book’s hero deo visited our campus to share their vision of hope and renewal with our freshman class. Following their visit, a graduate of the University of delaware Honors Program spoke to the freshman class via skype from the Village Health Works clinic in Burundi. discussing how she had used her delaware experience as a bridge to help others achieve a better life in places that the rest of the world seems to have overlooked, her talk complemented Kidder and deo’s visit. Strength in What Remains proved not only to be a popular choice, but to provide a unique opportunity for our students to learn about another part of the world and to begin to understand the complexities and interrelationships of the global landscape. sincerely, Avron Abraham, Ph.d. Faculty director First Year seminar and common Reader Program

university of delaware students line up to have books signed by deo

www.fys.udel.edu

Also by Tracy Kidder

MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World By Tracy Kidder An ALA Notable Book; A New York Times Notable Book in medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: to cure infectious diseases and bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. demonstrating a clear-eyed understanding of the interaction of politics, wealth, social systems, and disease, Tracy Kidder’s magnificent account shows how one person can make a difference in solving global health problems. A popular Common Reading selection at over 60 colleges/universities and One City, One Book programs. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7301-3 | 352pp. | $16.00/$19.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio • eBook themes: science & society • service • social Justice

To view the author’s talk at the 2009 First-Year Experience® meeting, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yaud5t6

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

A MIGHTY LONG WAY My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School By Carlotta Walls LaNier with Lisa Frazier Page

To view video of Carlotta Walls LaNier’s presentation at the 2010 First-Year Experience® Conference in Denver, CO, go to: http://tinyurl.com/27l9tfw

Foreword by Bill Clinton

hen fourteen-year-old carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of little Rock central High school on september 25, 1957, she and eight other black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “little Rock nine,” as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America. complete with compelling photographs, A Mighty Long Way shines a light on this watershed moment in civil rights history and shows that determination, fortitude, and the ability to change the world are not exclusive to a few special people, but are inherent within us all.

Now in paperback

One World | TR | 978-0-345-51101-0 | 336pp. $16.00/$19.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading: Defiance College, SUNY Potsdam, and others. Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Coming of Age, Inclusiveness, Regionalism: Alabama/The South Discussion Guides: Available Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

“Carlotta walls Lanier’s A Mighty Long Way is a riveting account of nine brave high school students and their families in a quest for quality desegregated public education. what happened in Little Rock in 1957 resulted in america’s greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil war. Carlotta’s account of events inside and outside Little Rock Central High school should be read and studied particularly by those who now walk through doors of opportunity which Carlotta and her schoolmates first opened over 50 years ago. when I started her book, I couldn’t put it down. It is a must-read.” —James L. “Skip” Rutherford III, Dean of The University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service “Carlotta walls Lanier was the youngest of the Little Rock 9 to cross the color lines, political barriers and cultural chasms that circumscribed her life. she, her family and friends paid a heavy price that burdened them even as it liberated all of us. Her memoir, which is really our memoir, provides a rare perspective on that history in the making.” —Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and The Awakening of the Nation “In A Mighty Long Way, this revered american and special friend boldly tells how her high school days have evolved as the central experience of her life. I commend Carlotta for the legacy she has left and for the lessons she and her colleagues have taught us all with such nobility.” —Nancy Rousseau, Principal, Little Rock Central High School (2002–present)

About the Author: carlotta Walls LaNier CaRLotta waLLs LanIeR attended Michigan State University and graduated from Colorado State College—now the University of Northern Colorado, on whose board of trustees she sits. After working for the YWCA, she founded her own real estate brokerage firm, LaNier and Company. A sought-after lecturer, LaNier speaks across the country and has received the Congressional Medal of Honor and two honorary doctorate degrees. She is the mother of two children, Whitney and Brooke, and lives in Englewood, Colorado with her husband Ira.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Carlotta Walls LaNier Why i Wrote This Book: i started this book in earnest in January of 2006. i had in mind the upcoming 50th anniversary of our entry into little Rock’s central High school. This september 2007 event might have been the impetus, but it wasn’t the reason. (Besides, i sort of missed that deadline by a couple of years!) As i say in the book, i didn’t talk much about my experiences until the late 1980s, after our 30th anniversary, when the nine of us were all together again in little Rock and Bill clinton was governor of the state. in the years that followed, melba told her story in Warriors Don’t Cry. ernie had a movie about his experience, The Ernie Green Story. mrs. Huckaby, the assistant principal, told her story, which was made into a movie called Crisis at Little Rock. Back in the 1960s, mrs. Bates had told her story in The Long Shadow of Little Rock. so i started making my way into high school and college classrooms to tell my story. invariably, students who knew some of these other works would assume that my story was also their story, that my story had already been represented by others. Well, that just was not the case. each of us has a story—not greater or lesser, just different. so this is one reason: my story had not yet been told. i was the only one who could tell it. But why the long wait? Because this journey back in time was deeply painful. To revisit that period, to really find out what it all meant and how it shaped the life i have lived, took a great deal of courage i wasn’t sure that i had. Though i had friends along the way who helped me get at that story, the journey backwards—as it was over fifty years ago—was still a singular and lonely path. Quite frankly, i did not want to go there. But as with all that weighs heavy in our psyches, there are things we need to see in the light of day to understand. As the old woman said, when asked about her writing: “How do i know what i think until i see what i say?” This book is my understanding of my story. it’s out now, and i can see the light of day. Upon the book’s release, i began to talk about it with students on college campuses. my favorite moments during these visits are the question and answer sessions. on a recent visit to a campus in north carolina, it seemed that every student was bursting with questions. some of the African American students connected their own educational path with my journey. By doing so, they came to know their nation’s history in a more personal and real way. i also enjoy going to lunch or dinner with students; the talk becomes more intimate. i get to know who they are, and they can ask me questions that often cause me to think in new ways about my story. i would be delighted to visit your campus so your students can get to know my story, which is ultimately their story. Carlotta Walls LaNier

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

THE OTHER WES MOORE One Name, Two Fates

Website: www.TheOtherWesMoore.com

By Wes Moore

Now in paperback

Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52820-7 | 272pp. $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading: • Colleges & Universities Bay Path College (Springfield, MA); Cabrini College (Radnor, PA); California State University at Bakersfield (Bakersfield, CA), Marquette University • One City, One Book Everybody Reads (Multnomah County Library in Portland, OR); One Book, One Bakersfield (Bakersfield, CA) Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Coming of Age, Identity, Regionalism: Baltimore/The Northeast Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

n december 2000, The Baltimore Sun ran a short article about Wes moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes scholarship. The same paper also ran a huge story about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. one of the brothers was also named Wes moore. Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence or his inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen? That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that lasted for several years. over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had experienced a life not unlike his own. Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods. Both were fatherless. They’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had faced similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies. Told in dramatic alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

“The Other Wes Moore highlights the transformative influence of caring adults. . . . moore vividly and powerfully describes not just the culture of the streets but how it feels to be a boy growing up in a world where violence makes you a man, school seems irrelevant, and drug dealing is a respected career choice.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “wes moore has not just written a compelling story, but has created a perfect case study of how and why young men can go down the wrong path—and how they can be saved. this should be required reading for anyone who is trying to understand what is happening to young men in our inner cities.” —Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone

About the Author: Wes Moore wes mooRe is a Rhodes Scholar and a combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan. As a White House Fellow he worked as a special assistant to Secretary Condoleezza Rice at the State Department. He was a featured speaker at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, was named one of Ebony magazine’s Top 30 Leaders Under 30 (2007), and most recently, was dubbed one of the top young business leaders in America in Crain’s New York Business. He works in New York City.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Wes Moore i am living proof that a support system of family, mentors, and educators is critical for success and, as such, have the most tremendous respect for those of you who give tirelessly of yourselves to improve the future of a child. i would like to humbly thank all of you for being heroes to so many of your students, for inspiring them in ways you probably cannot even fathom yet, and for teaching them character and personal responsibility in addition to academics. it is your example, your belief in them, along with the preparation you give them in the classroom, that will unlock doors of opportunity. i am a grandchild of a retired school teacher who taught in the Bronx public school system for over twenty years, the son-in-law of a new York city public elementary school teacher of over twenty years, and a proud advocate for schools and the kids they serve. i have grown up hearing the stories of redemption and disappointment, of joy and pain, and of the success and failure of so many kids who find themselves in a system that currently works for some, but doesn’t for too many others. like a captain on the front lines in Afghanistan, you are the front-line soldiers in the most important battle our nation faces now: the battle to educate and prepare our next generation of leaders. Just as we need to mobilize leaders and resources around our battles overseas, the same must be done to help our children navigate their journeys into adulthood. We are all familiar with the disturbing statistics of low graduation and high dropout rates in our nation’s public schools. And with more than fifty percent of marriages failing in today’s society, and single-parent households the norm in many inner-city communities, children lack the guidance that the family structure once provided. i am sure we are all alarmed that, in today’s world, young men of color are more likely to be in prison than in college. For too many in our nation, particularly those who live in our most precarious areas, a broken school system serves as a precursor to entry into the juvenile justice system. But i believe this is a problem we can—and must—tackle. studies show that students from low-income communities can and do achieve at high levels when they are given the resources and attention they deserve. And there are amazing educators and civic leaders who are already leading the charge with impressive steam. i know the fixes aren’t simple, nor are they cheap. But there are a few things to remember: The answer isn’t simply spending more money; it is to spend money wisely with a focus on the children we intend to serve. The costs of inaction are unbearably high when you consider that it costs nearly $200,000 to incarcerate someone in new York, while a recent columbia University study shows that cutting the dropout rate in half would yield 45 billion dollars annually in both new federal tax revenues and cost savings. Promising reforms that embrace alternative teaching platforms, teacher pay systems based on performance, and the inspired 4.35 billion dollars in “Race to the Top” funds that the obama administration has allocated are tremendous, but a national embrace of innovation and policy change is imperative. We will need fortitude and ingenuity as we embark on the education reform battle of our lifetime. The chance to raise expectations, the opportunity for our children to do better than their parents, and the need to translate the experience of young students into the dreams of a nation must now drive us all. Just as it was imperative for my fellow soldiers and i to win our fights, the same can be said for you and the work you are doing. As President obama recently expressed, “The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens.” i could not agree more. wes moore at the Random House second annual author event for nYC educators

Wes Moore

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

ENRIQUE’S JOURNEY The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother

Website: www.EnriquesJourney.com

By Sonia Nazario A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

hen enrique was just five years old, his mother lourdes, seeing no other way out of their poverty in Honduras, decided to make the hazardous trek north. enrique and his siblings struggled without their mother, until enrique finally made his way from the rough streets of Tegucigalpa through mexico and across the dangerous Texan border. Journalist sonia nazario’s expert reporting allows students to encounter each setback alongside enrique, and the result is as suspenseful and harrowing as it is informative. Enrique’s Journey is a timely account of one anguished family’s experience with an issue of international scope and urgency— illegal immigration—but it is also the timeless, mythic story of a dangerous journey undertaken to make a broken family whole.

“this portrait of poverty and family ties has the potential to reshape american conversations about immigration.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7178-1 | 336pp. $14.95/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading at more than 40 colleges and One Book, One City programs. College of Mount St. Joseph, Henderson State University, Indiana University, University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University, Rockhurst University, and others. Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Coming of Age, Immigration, Social Justice Discussion Guides: Teacher’s Guide Available Alternative Formats: eBook

“a stirring and troubling book about a magnificent journey . . . Joseph Campbell would recognize Enrique’s Journey. It’s the stuff of myth . . . [but] Enrique’s Journey is true. . . . a microcosm of the massive exodus pouring over the borders of our nations . . . enrique’s suffering and bravery become universal, and one cannot fail to be moved by the desperation and sheer strength of spirit that guides these lonely wanderers. . . . Enrique’s Journey is about love. It’s about family. It’s about home. . . . the border will continue to trouble the dreams of anyone who is paying attention. . . . Enrique’s Journey is among the best border books yet written.” —The Washington Post Book World “gripping and harrowing . . . a story begging to be told . . . readers fed up with the ongoing turf wars between fact and fiction, take note: Here is fantastic stunt reporting that places this sometimes hard-to-believe story squarely in the realm of nonfiction.” —The Christian Science Monitor “a meticulously documented account of an epic journey, one undertaken by thousands of children every year . . . [nazario] covers both positive and negative effects of immigration, illuminating the problem’s complexity. . . . In telling enrique’s story [she] bears witness for us all.” —San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author: sonia Nazario sonIa nazaRIo has spent twenty years reporting and writing about social issues, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have addressed some of this country’s most intractable problems: hunger, drug addiction, and immigration. She has won numerous national journalism and book awards. Nazario is a graduate of Williams College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Sonia Nazario President obama has vowed to put immigration reform on the front burner. That means that student interest in Enrique’s Journey, already read by freshman at twenty-seven colleges and universities, will no doubt increase in the year to come. in the fall of 2009, i traveled to nearly twenty colleges and universities to talk with students about Enrique’s Journey. These visits led to incredibly interesting and moving encounters with students who revealed unique responses to my book. many non-latino students told me they had no real concept of the poverty that pushes migrants out of places like Honduras. They said they found the story of what enrique and other migrant children are willing to do to reach the U.s. not only moving, but instructive, forcing them to reevaluate what they know about immigration. one African American student in chicago told me how her grandmother had moved from mississippi to illinois and left her children behind, an experience common among African American women leaving the south. she said the book gave her a deeper bond with people south of the border. mexican American students often tell me they have a better understanding of the tensions between mexicans and central Americans in the U.s. The most moving responses, however, are from latino students who say this is the first book that allowed them to see some glimmer of their own lives and experiences. They—or someone in their family—made the journey to the U.s. on top of freight trains or were separated from parents in the process of coming to the U.s. immigrant students—whether from china, Russia, or Poland—told me they lived with these separations as well. What has been most promising is the students’ clear desire to alleviate the situation i describe in Enrique’s Journey. As one Unc—Greensboro student put it so beautifully: When the U.s. decided to put a man on the moon, they said it would take ten years; it actually took just eight years. some of the astronauts on that moon mission were eighteen years old when the commitment by the U.s. was first made. “i’m 18,” the student told me. “if we can put a man on the moon in less than ten years, surely we can make progress in helping to create jobs in latin America in the next decade.” The woman who administers the freshman read program at northern Arizona University said Enrique’s Journey appealed to her and worked for many reasons: it appealed to both male and female students. The protagonist is close to the students’ age. The book, she said, is a compelling read that broadens students’ awareness of cultures not their own. simply, it is about a hot current issue. The administration and faculty liked that Enrique’s Journey addressed certain themes: survival, community, education, family, diversity, racism, violence, drugs, redemption, foreign relations, politics, and immigration. They also liked that it touches on emotions some first-year students might be dealing with, such as loneliness, connection to family, and the temptation to succumb to violence and drugs. What i have enjoyed most about my discussions at these universities is that they have taken a highly polarizing issue—an important issue—and allowed students to see it in a nuanced way. As we head into renewed and heated debates about immigration, this is an issue with many shades of gray, best explored through research, reflection, and most importantly, conversation. Sonia Nazario

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

Author Spotlight: John elder Robison JoHn eLdeR RoBIson lives with his wife and son in Amherst, Massachusetts. His company, JE Robison Service, specializes in the repair and restoration of fine European automobiles.

Websites: www.JohnRobison.com • www.JERobison.blogspot.com/ www.facebook.com/JohnElderRobison • www.twitter.com/johnrobison/john-robison To view video of John Elder Robison’s presentation at the 2009 First-Year Experience® Conference in Orlando, FL, go to: http://tinyurl.com/y8nrzbu

BE DIFFERENT NEW

Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian With Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers By John Elder Robison With disarming honesty and wit, Robison argues that Asperger’s syndrome is not so much about disability as it is about difference, offering anecdotes and stories drawn from his life, and the lives of other Aspergians, to illustrate his claim. Robison presents practical advice to Aspergians, suggesting how they can improve their communication skills and learn to navigate social situations and relationships. Aspergians will find much to support them here as they navigate the world of “neurotypicals,” while all readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the attributes of Asperger’s—and of a truly unique mind. Do not order before 3/29/2011. Crown Archetype | HC | 978-0-307-88481-7 | 304pp. | $24.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $12.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio • eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • Life skills

LOOK ME IN THE EYE My Life with Asperger’s

For an author video, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2es7jhx

By John Elder Robison According to author John elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye is about “growing up with Asperger’s syndrome—a high functioning form of autism—overcoming my limitations, and ultimately becoming a successful adult.” “John Robison’s book is an immensely affecting account of a life lived according to his gifts rather than his limitations. His story provides ample evidence for my belief that individuals on the autistic spectrum are just as capable of rich and productive lives as anyone else.” —Daniel Tammet, author of Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant Selected for Common Reading at Defiance College and SUNY Potsdam, and used in high schools and college courses throughout the country. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-39618-1 | 320pp. | $14.95/$16.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio • eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • Identity

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from John Elder Robison Thank you for considering Look Me in the Eye and Be Different for your school reading program. i am truly honored that so many educators have taken up my stories as teaching tools. When i began writing, never in my wildest dreams did i imagine that i’d be able to touch so many lives in a positive way. it’s very important that we show young people that different does not have to mean disabled, and that it’s possible to build a good life despite adversity. my stories deliver those messages. i dropped out of high school in the 1970s because i could not fit in. But i never let that stop me. i taught myself engineering and created special effects for Kiss. i designed games for milton Bradley, restored Rolls Royce automobiles, got married, and raised a family. i am different, but i am far from being disabled by my Asperger’s. in these books, i share the secrets of my success. since its release in 2007, Look Me in the Eye has become one of the definitive accounts of life with autism. my stories of rock and roll, video games, strange people, exotic cars, and growing up different speak to many young people. At the same time, the insights into my inscrutable autistic mind have proven valuable to both teachers and mental health professionals. With the 2011 release of Be Different, those insights will extend even farther. nothing could be more timely . . . every year, upwards of fifty thousand children are diagnosed with autism in the United states. We have a tremendous, and still growing, need to help parents and teachers understand these children, and we have an even greater need to help other children understand kids who are different. my books address those needs directly. my stories also offer hope and insight for the millions of children who are “just a little bit different,” but do not have a diagnosis of a disability or an ieP. in some ways, those misfit kids may need my stories most of all. Look Me in the Eye and Be Different are suitable for middle school to adult readers. Both books are supported by teaching plans, reading group guides, and a strong online community. You can download the guides for free from the Random House Academic website and www.johnrobison.com. The teaching guides for my books have been developed in conjunction with two of the leading autism/Asperger schools in the country: monarch of Houston, Texas; and ivymount of Rockville, maryland. They will help you integrate my stories into special needs and general english and diversity curriculums. in addition to writing, i am also active in speaking and teaching. i am available to speak at schools nationwide with inspirational programs for students and families, and continuing education for staff. i also teach courses about the Asperger mind and the use of my books in school curricula at elms college in chicopee, massachusetts. Finally, i have a large online community on Facebook, on Blogger, and on the Psychology Today website. i invite you and your students to join me there and continue the dialogue. John Elder Robison

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

Special Paperback Pre-Publication Give-Away*

HALF A LIFE

Website: www.DarinStrauss.com To read an author Q&A, go to: http://tinyurl.com/27drbbn To read or watch an author interview: http://tinyurl.com/29qdt7t

A Memoir By Darin Strauss

“H

alf my life ago, i killed a girl.” so begins darin strauss’s Half a Life, the true story of how one outing in his father’s oldsmobile resulted in the death of a classmate and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. We follow strauss as he explores his startling past—collision, funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case—and what starts as a personal tale of a tragic event opens into the story of how to live with a very hard fact: we can try our human best in the crucial moment, and it might not be good enough. Half a Life is an honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, grief, and living with the past.

May 2011

Paperback coming May 2011. Do not order before 5/31/2011. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-8253-4 | 224 pp. $13.00/$15.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Coming of Age, Ethics/Decision Making, Identity

“at the center of this elegant, painful, stunningly honest memoir thrums a question fundamental to what it means to be human: what do we do with what we’ve been given? . . . what is truly exceptional here is watching a writer of fine fiction probe, directly, carefully and with great humility, the source from which his fiction springs.” —The New York Times Book Review “with honesty and sensitivity, strauss looks not only at how that fateful incident decades ago ended Celine’s young life, but also at how it greatly affected his. out of undoubtedly complicated circumstances, he crafts a simple yet remarkable story about pain and guilt, maturity and responsibility, hope and understanding.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Half a Life is an unusually honest, thoughtful and unsettling memoir, which readers and critics are destined to call ‘brave’—for it is brave. But the book is more than simply brave, it is a searingly self-disciplined work of literature, and of self-examination. darin strauss does not permit himself even one sentence, even one moment, of lazy thinking, or mitigating excuses. He examines with rigorous honesty every moment of the most awful and tragic event of his life. after all that admirable work and all that attentive detail, when he does finally reach a place of cautious hope, the impact is staggering and unforgettable.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Alternative Formats: eBook

*to request a free copy, email rhacademic@randomhouse.com

About the Author: Darin strauss daRIn stRauss is the international bestselling author of the New York Times Notable Books Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy, and the national bestseller More Than It Hurts You. His work has been translated into fourteen languages and published in seventeen countries. Awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing, Strauss currently teaches at New York University.

www.CommonReads.com

Excerpt from Half a Life cHAPTeR 1

“By the time you’ve run your mind through it a hundred times, relentlessly worked every tic of your terror, it’s lost its power over you . . . [soon it’s] a story on a page, or, more precisely, everybody’s story on a page.” —John Gardner Half my life ago, i killed a girl. i had just turned eighteen, and when you drive in new post-adolescence, you drive with friends. We were headed to shoot a few rounds of putt-putt. it was may 1988. The breeze did its open-window work on the hair behind my neck and ears. We had a month before high-school graduation. i was at the wheel. Up ahead, on the right shoulder, a pair of tiny bicyclists bent over their handlebars. The horizon was just my town’s modest skyline done in watercolors. We all shared a four-lane road; the bicycles traveled in the same direction as my car. Bare legs pedaling under a long sky. i think i fiddled with the radio. Hey what song is this? so turn it up. Then one of the bike riders did something. i remember only that—a glitch on the right. my oldsmobile stayed in the far left lane. After a wobble or two, the bicyclist eased a wheel into the road, maybe thirty feet away. my tires lapped up the distance that separated us. next the bicycle made a crisp turn into the left lane and my sudden car. dark blond hair appeared very clearly in my windshield. i remember a kind of mechanical curiosity about why this was happening and what it might mean. This moment has been, for all my life, a kind of shadowy giant. i’m able, tick by tick, to remember each second before it. Radio; friends; thoughts of mini-golf, another thought of maybe just going to the beach; the distance between car and bicycle closing: anything could still happen. But i am powerless to see what comes next; the moment raises a shoulder, lowers its head, and slumps away. And then it’s too late. my forearm hooks to protect my eyes. The front-seat passenger shouts. i picture my foot disappearing under the dash, kicking down for the brake, straining farther than any real leg can go. Yet the hood of my oldsmobile met celine Zilke at forty miles an hour. Her head cracked the windshield. i remember the yellow reflector from her spokes, a useless spark, kicking up the glass incline and over the roof. my car bumped onto the grassy median. And then i must have done all the normal driver things. Put on the clonking hazards, rolled to a stop, cut the engine; i must have stepped onto the grass in my T-shirt and shorts. i simply have no memory of how i got there. celine Zilke, the girl on the bike, was sixteen and always will be sixteen. And i knew her: celine went to my school. she was an eleventh-grader. i see her playing field hockey in blue gym shorts—celine had been that lively, athletic type one always imagines in shorts. or i see her settled in beside friends on the concrete benches just outside the cafeteria, or dashing off notes in the public-speaking class we took together. celine sat by the window. When i look back now, she strikes me most of all as young.

Excerpted from Half A Life by Darin Strauss, copyright © 2010 by Darin Strauss. Originally published in hardcover by McSweeney’s in 2010 and subsequently in trade paperback by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. in 2011. All rights reserved.

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

I AM NUJOOD, AGE 10 AND DIVORCED

To watch a video of Nujood, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2ep9qj8

By Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui

“i’m a simple village girl whose family had to move to the capital, and i have always obeyed the orders of the men in my family. since forever, i have learned to say yes to everything. Today, i have decided to say no . . . ” nujood Ali was nine when her parents married her to a man in his thirties. At ten, she was the first child bride in Yemen to win a divorce, breaking with traditional practice. Written with childlike simplicity and penetrating honesty, this international bestselling memoir is at once shocking and inspiring, disturbing and redemptive. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-58967-5 | 208pp. | $12.00/$15.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Human Rights

I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

Website: www.MayaAngelou.com

By Maya Angelou “Students [. . .] find this book plunges them into a passionate, sensitive life in the midst of troubled and sometimes brutal realities. They found Maya Angelou’s spirit and strength a wellspring of pride in womanhood. Students also experienced the book as writers themselves and learned much about the memoir craft.” —Constance Berman, Director of Professional Studies, Southern Vermont College

NEW

Selected for Common Reading at Berry College, Green River Community College (Auburn, WA), Luther College, and others. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-8002-8 | 304pp. | $17.00/$20.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook • teacher’s guide themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Inclusiveness

LET’S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME: A Memoir of Friendship By Gail Caldwell Writers Gail caldwell and caroline Knapp shared a love of books and dogs, struggles with alcoholism, and a commitment to living self-reliant lives. They walked the woods of new england together constantly, growing and nurturing a deep bond of friendship. When Knapp was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the depth and strength of that bond became clearer than ever. Unflinching in its expression of grief, and nuanced in its depiction of friendship between women, this is a searing and intimate testament to the connections people forge and the meaning they create in their own lives and the lives of others. Random House | HC | 978-1-4000-6738-1 | 208pp. | $23.00/$25.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $11.50 Paperback coming August 2011. alternative Formats: eBook themes: gender Issues • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

JOKER ONE: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood By Donovan Campbell

To view the author’s talk at the 2009 First-Year Experience® meeting, go to: http://tinyurl.com/y8spg2a

After graduating from Princeton University, motivated by his unwavering patriotism and commitment, campbell decided to join the service, realizing that becoming a marine officer would allow him to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. in this inspiring memoir, campbell recounts a timeless and transcendent tale of brotherhood, courage, and sacrifice. “Campbell’s narrative humanized a war, and challenged me to critically examine the ideas of leadership and social responsibility; topics I thought I had a handle on prior to reading Joker —Rachel Duﬀ Anderson, Director of First-Year Experience, Siena Heights University One.”

Selected for Common Reading at Siena Heights University. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7956-5 | 336pp. | $16.00/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • group dynamics • Leadership & motivation

www.CommonReads.com

By Dana Canedy

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN A Story of Love and Honor

Website: www.AJournalForJordan.com To view the author’s talk at the 2010 First-Year Experience® meeting, go to http://tinyurl.com/2bw4hmr

in 2005, First sergeant charles monroe King began to write what would become a two hundred-page journal for his son in case he did not make it home from the war in iraq. He was killed on october 14, 2006. A Journal for Jordan is both a mother’s letter to her son— fierce in its honesty—about the father he lost before he could even speak, and a father’s advice and prayers for the son he will never know. Selected for Common Reading at Broward College, Texas State University (2010), and University of Texas Arlington. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-39600-6 | 288pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

GOD GREW TIRED OF US: A Memoir

Website: www.JohnDauFoundation.org

By John Bul Dau with Michael S. Sweeney one of the uprooted youngsters known collectively as the lost Boys of sudan, John Bul dau was twelve years old when civil war ravaged his village. As bullets split the night and mortar shells exploded around him, John fled into the darkness—the first terrified moments of a journey that would lead him thousands of miles into an exile that was to last many years. John’s memoir of his childhood shows African life and values at their best, while his searing account of hardship, famine, and war also testifies to human resilience and kindness. Selected for Common Reading at Cazenovia College. National Geographic | TR | 978-1-4262-0212-4 | 304pp. | $14.95/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • genocide • Human Rights

FUNNY IN FARSI

Website: www.FiroozehDumas.com

A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America By Firoozeh Dumas Winner of the 2008 Spirit of America Award (National Council for the Social Studies) and other awards A popular college Common Reading selection Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Firoozeh dumas’s wonderfully engaging family, who moved from iran to southern california in the 1970s, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of the U. s. “What’s charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains aﬀectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture. It’s the brilliance of true sophistication at work.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Selected for Common Reading at more than 20 colleges and One City, One Book programs. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-6837-8 | 240pp. | $14.00/$16.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • discovering diﬀerences • Identity

LAUGHING WITHOUT AN ACCENT

Website: www.FiroozehDumas.com

Adventures of a Global Citizen By Firoozeh Dumas in the best-selling and classroom-adopted memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh dumas recounted her adventures growing up iranian American in southern california. now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, her well-meaning family, new motherhood, and amusing cultural conundrums, along with insights into the universality of the human condition. Selected for the 2010 Common Reading Program at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Selected for The Big Read: New Hampshire–2010. Random House | TR | 978-0-345-49957-8 | 256pp. | $15.00/$17.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • discovering diﬀerences • Identity

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

THE POSSIBILITY OF EVERYTHING

Website: www.ThePossibilityofEverything.com

A Memoir Now in paperback

By Hope Edelman Hope edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her marriage, her profession, and her place in the world. confused and worried about how to handle their three-year-old daughter’s curiously disruptive imaginary friend, edelman and her husband decided to take her to maya healers in Belize, hoping that a shaman might help them banish dodo—and all he represented—from their lives. This affecting memoir of a family’s emotional journey explores what edelman and her husband went looking for in Belize and what they ultimately discovered about the things that can possess and destroy—or heal—us all. Ballantine Books | TR | 978-0-345-50651-1 | 368pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World By Eve Ensler Ideal for Women’s Studies Programs

Now in paperback

To watch a video of Eve Ensler discussing her book, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2bp6utt

This daring, provocative, and insightful book delivers fictional monologues and stories inspired by girls around the globe, including an anorexic blogging as she eats less and less; a chinese factory worker making Barbies; and a masai girl from Kenya unwilling to endure female genital mutilation. We come to understand the universality of girls everywhere: their resiliency, their wildness, their pain, their fears, and their triumphs. This is a celebration of the authentic voice inside every girl and an inspiring call to action for girls everywhere to speak up, follow their dreams, and become the women they are meant to be. Villard Books | TR | 978-0-8129-7016-6 | 192pp. | $13.00/$15.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Identity

BLACK HEARTS One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death

Website: www.JimFrederick.com

By Jim Frederick Now in paperback

This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne division’s fabled 502nd infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” deployed in late 2005 to iraq’s so-called Triangle of death, the Black Hearts were hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks. suffering from a particularly heavy death toll and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo company, 1st Battalion—were caught, over their year-long tour of duty, in a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality. drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers, and firsthand reporting from the Triangle of death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. Selected as First Book at West Point, United States Military Academy. Broadway | TR | 978-0-307-45076-0 | 464pp. | $16.00/$18.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • group dynamics • Leadership & motivation

THE TRANSLATOR: A Memoir

Website: http://tinyurl.com/cg8m6m

By Daoud Hari The Translator is a suspenseful, harrowing, and deeply moving story of how one person can make a difference in the world—an on-the-ground account of one of the greatest atrocities of our time, the genocide in darfur. Having chosen language and storytelling as his weapons—while others around him were taking up arms—Hari gives us a true and necessary portrait of a deeply troubled region. Selected for Common Reading at Colorado Mountain College and Mars Hill College. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7917-6 | 224pp. | $13.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook • teacher’s guide themes: genocide • Human Rights • perseverance/personal strength

www.CommonReads.com

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

Website: www.MyUnquenchable.wordpress.com

AN UNQUENCHABLE THIRST

One Woman’s Extraordinary Journey of Faith, Hope, and Clarity By Mary Johnson At seventeen, mary Johnson felt called to join mother Theresa and the missionaries of charity. As sister donata, she worked alongside mother Theresa for twenty years. in this luminous memoir, she offers a glimpse into a world apart, one marked by poverty and devotion, yet inhabited by young women who, like all young women, wrestle with identity, faith, and meaning.

April 2011

Do not order before 4/5/2011. Spiegel & Grau | HC | 978-0-385-52747-7 | 592pp. | $26.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $13.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: gender Issues • Identity • service

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK: My Year in a Women’s Prison By Piper Kerman

Website: www.PiperKerman.com/Orange

shortly after Piper Kerman graduated from smith college, the mistakes of youth caught up with her in the form of a federal indictment on a ten-year-old narcotics charge. in her compelling memoir, Orange is the New Black, Kerman reveals what it was like to live in the facility “club Fed,” the infamous women’s federal correctional facility in danbury, connecticut, and the strange lessons she learned during her thirteen-month stay. Revealing and enraging, it is a bold and wholly original entry in the canon of prison literature, which offers a unique perspective on the criminal justice system.

Now in paperback

Do not order paperback before 3/8/2011. Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52339-4 | 336pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making, gender studies, Identity, social Justice

THE WORLD IS BIGGER NOW An American Journalist’s Release from Captivity in North Korea . . . A Remarkable Story of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness

To watch a video of Euna Lee discussing her book, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2egosxj

By Euna Lee with Lisa Dickey in 2009, the journalists euna lee and laura ling were apprehended by north Korean officials while working on a report at the border of north Korea and china. They languished in captivity for months. Here, for the first time, euna lee tells her story, recounting how they were captured and what they experienced in captivity, her fear that she would be sent to a hard-labor camp, the agony of being separated from her husband and daughter, and the negotiations that led to their release.

NEW

Broadway | HC | 978-0-307-71613-2 | 320pp. | $25.00/$28.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $12.50 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Human Rights • Regionalism: north korea/asia

ALL SOULS: A Family Story from Southie

Website: www.MichaelPatrickMacDonald.com

By Michael Patrick MacDonald south Boston—“southie”—is a working-class irish neighborhood forever linked to the 1974 anti-busing race riots. However, southie is also home to many who (despite the neighborhood’s rampant violence, drugs, and poverty) love it fiercely. in All Souls, macdonald illuminates his troubled home through a nuanced portrait of his family, showing that a place ravaged by gangs and violence is still a beloved home to its inhabitants, who struggle to maintain the bonds of family and create lives of love and meaning despite incredible obstacles. “My students were completely captivated by All Souls. It gave them their first real understanding of poverty, violence, and the wounds and scars of racism for white people as well as African Americans. Yet they also understood that this is a book about love, not hate—hope, not —Elaine Tyler May, Professor of American Studies and History, Director of Graduate Studies, despair.” American Studies Department, University of Minnesota

Selected for Common Reading at Tufts University and others. Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-807-07213-4 | 296pp. | $13.95/$16.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: Coming of age • Identity

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

THE ROAD OF LOST INNOCENCE

Website: www.Somaly.org

The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine By Somaly Mam Introduction by Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foreword by Nicholas D. Kristof

As a girl she was sold into sexual slavery, but now she rescues others. This is the true story of a cambodian heroine. somaly mam’s book is an unforgettable and inspiring story of triumph over unthinkable adversity, giving a face and voice to a human-rights disaster of global proportions: the sprawling sex-trade industry of southeast Asia. Written in exquisite, spare, unflinching prose, The Road of Lost Innocence recounts mam’s early life, tells of her awakening as an activist, and relates her harrowing and brave fight against the powerful and corrupt forces that steal the lives of young girls. Selected for Common Reading at West Texas A&M University. Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52622-7 | 224pp. | $15.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: gender Issues • Human Rights • social Justice

THE THINGS THAT NEED DOING: A Memoir By Sean Manning Now in paperback

As the only child of divorced parents, twenty-seven-year-old journalist and caterer sean manning was forced to leave the energy and vibrancy of new York city behind and return to his childhood home in ohio to be with his mother during her long battle with cancer. Ultimately, the experience led him to a profound sense of self-discovery and a new appreciation of what is important in life. The Things That Need Doing tells a timeless and universal story of love, grief, loss, and growing up. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-46324-1 | 304pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN

Website: www.AzarNafisi.com

A Memoir in Books By Azar Nafisi

This is the moving story of how nafisi and her students managed to escape the harsh constraints of their daily lives through the literature they read together every week. “Resonant and deeply affecting . . . an eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction, on the refuge from ideology that art can offer to those living under tyranny, and art’s affirmative and subversive faith in the voice of the individual.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A memoir about teaching Western literature in revolutionary Iran, with profound and fascinating insights into both. A masterpiece.” —Bernard Lewis, author of The Crisis of Islam

Selected for Common Reading at Ashland University, Case Western Reserve University, Ithaca College, Mount Holyoke College, Sweet Briar College (VA), and others. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7106-4 | 384pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: discovering diﬀerences • gender Issues • Human Rights

THINGS I’VE BEEN SILENT ABOUT

Website: www.AzarNafisi.com

Memories of a Prodigal Daughter By Azar Nafisi Azar nafisi, author of the beloved international bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, now gives us a stunning personal story of growing up in iran, marked by memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother and set against the background of political revolution. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7390-7 | 368pp. | $16.00/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Regionalism: the middle east

www.CommonReads.com

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream By Barack Obama “[Barack Obama] is that rare politician who can actually write—and write movingly and genuinely about himself. . . . In these pages he often speaks to the reader as if he were an old friend from back in the day, salting policy recommendations with colorful asides about the absurdities of political life . . . . [He] strives in these pages to ground his policy thinking in simple common sense . . . while articulating these ideas in level-headed, nonpartisan prose. That, in itself, is something unusual, not only in these venomous pre-election days, but also in these increasingly polarized and polarizing times.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Selected for Common Reading at Endicott College, New York Institute of Technology, and others. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-23770-5 | 384pp. | $14.95/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: ethics/decision making • group dynamics • service

DREAMS FROM MY FATHER: A Story of Race and Inheritance By Barack Obama in this unsentimental memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life. The story begins in new York, where obama learns that his father—whom he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This inspires an emotional odyssey—first to Kansas, where he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii; and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and finally reconciles his divided inheritance. Selected for Common Reading at Augustana College, Boston College, California State University—Eastbay, Elmhurst College, LaGuardia Community College, Quinnipiac University, Southern Methodist University, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Washington, Xavier University of Louisiana, and others. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-1-4000-8277-3 | 480pp. | $14.95/$16.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • Inclusiveness

GERTRUDA’S OATH A Child, A Promise, and A Heroic Escape During World War II By Ram Oren Translated by Barbara Harshav

Now in paperback

michael stolowitzky, the only son of a wealthy Jewish family in Poland, was just three years old when war broke out and his family lost everything. His father, desperate to settle his business affairs, travels to France, leaving michael in the care of his mother and Gertruda Bablinska, a catholic nanny. When michael’s mother has a stroke, Gertruda promises the dying woman that she will make her way to Palestine and raise michael as her own son. Written with the invaluable assistance of michael, now seventy-two and living in new York city, Gertruda’s Oath re-creates michael and Gertruda’s amazing journey. Doubleday Religion | TR | 978-0-385-52719-4 | 320pp. | $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 michael stolowitzky is available for campus visits • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: ethics/decision making • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

A REASON TO BELIEVE: Lessons from an Improbable Life By Governor Deval Patrick From the south side of chicago to the nubian desert, massachusetts Governor deval Patrick has lived a rich life marked by both obstacle and opportunity. Here, he shares the lessons he has learned from the places he’s been and the people he’s met, illuminating the harshness of childhood poverty, the challenge of relief work in Africa, and the long road to becoming the first black governor of massachusetts. Governor Patrick’s story will inspire readers to shape their own happiness, empower themselves, and encourage the happiness and empowerment of others, ultimately building communities and a country of inspired and inspiring individuals.

April 2011

Do not order before 4/12/2011. Broadway | HC | 978-0-7679-3112-0 | 208pp. | $21.99/$24.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $11.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • service • social Justice

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

A SENSE OF DUTY: Our Journey from Vietnam to America By Quang Pham

Now in paperback

Quang Pham immigrated to the United states in 1975 with his mother and sisters, while his father, a south Vietnamese Air Force pilot, remained a prisoner of the communist government in Vietnam. Pham eventually joined the marines and fought in the Persian Gulf War. in A Sense of Duty, he writes movingly and bluntly about his eventual reunion with his father, his difficulties assimilating in America, and the racism he experienced as a soldier during the Gulf War. His is a unique perspective on nation, identity, and immigration, as well as an affecting portrait of a family both torn apart and reunited by war. Presidio Press | TR | 978-0-89141-876-4 | 288pp. | $15.00/$17.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • Immigration

THE DEATH OF JOSSELINE Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands By Margaret Regan

Now in paperback

With a sweeping perspective and vivid on-the-ground reportage, margaret Regan tells of the escalating chaos along the U.s.-mexico border. A varied cast of characters emerges as she rides shotgun with the Border Patrol, interviews deported mexicans and angry Arizona ranchers, visits migrant shelters in mexico, and camps out in the thorny wilderness with “no more deaths” activists. Using Arizona as a microcosm, Regan explores a host of urgent issues: the border militarization that threatens the rights of U.s. citizens, the environmental damage wrought by the new border wall, the desperation that compels migrants to come north, and the human tragedy of the unidentified dead in Arizona’s morgues. “This should be required reading for everyone. . . . It gave me inspiration.” —Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-8070-0130-1 | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Inclusiveness • Regionalism: the southwest

EXTRAORDINARY, ORDINARY PEOPLE: A Memoir of Family NEW

By Condoleezza Rice Rice’s résumé is an impressive one: professor of political science, first African American female secretary of state, concert pianist. Her accomplishments are even more striking given that she spent her childhood in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, where she witnessed bombings and Ku Klux Klan attacks, and used “black-only” facilities. in overcoming these obstacles, she became a strong, self-assured woman—traits she drew on during her time with the Bush administration, as she advocated for the controversial wars in Afghanistan and iraq. Rice’s memoir reveals how her early experiences sowed the seeds of her political beliefs and helped her achieve success. Crown Archetype | HC | 978-0-307-58787-9 | 352pp. | $27.00/$31.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.50 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • Inclusiveness • service

HUNGER OF MEMORY: The Education of Richard Rodriguez By Richard Rodriguez Best Books for a Transformative New Year, NPR “His story is extraordinarily sensitive and compassionate, yet disarmingly objective, a genuine act of human and religious faith. Few have presented with such skill the indestructible intimacy of family love and its resilience under the stress of change. This book provides new understanding of the dynamism of language in establishing a person’s private and public —Professor Walter J. Ong, St. Louis University identity.”

Selected for Common Reading at Case Western Reserve University. Bantam | MM | 978-0-553-27293-2 | 224pp. | $7.99/$10.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Dial Press Trade Paperback | TR | 978-0-553-38251-8 | 224pp. | $15.00/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • Immigration • Inclusiveness

www.CommonReads.com

LIFe stoRIes—memoIR, BIogRapHY, and autoBIogRapHY

SONG FOR MY FATHERS By Tom Sancton Tulane Reading Project 2006 Former Time Paris Bureau chief and best-selling author Tom sancton returns to the new orleans of his youth and the music that shaped and guided his life. Here is the story of a young white boy consumed by a passion to learn the music and ways of a group of aging, black jazzmen in the twilight years of the segregation era. Written several years before Katrina crashed into new orleans and changed its face forever, Song for My Fathers is all the more moving in the wake of that cataclysm. Other Press | TR | 978-1-590-51376-7 | 368pp. | $14.95/$17.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Inclusiveness • Regionalism: new orleans

OUTCASTS UNITED An American Town, A Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference By Warren St. John

Website: www.OutcastsUnited.com To watch a video of Warren St. John discussing his book, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yegm5jj To view the author’s talk at the 2010 First-Year Experience® meeting, go to http://tinyurl.com/3y5gehr

A popular college Common Reading selection Outcasts United is the story of a refugee soccer team, a remarkable woman coach, and a small southern town turned upside down by the process of refugee resettlement. “Not merely about soccer, St. John’s book teaches readers about the social and economic difficulties of adapting to a new culture and the challenges facing a town with a new and disparate population. Despite their cultural and religious differences and the difficulty of adaptation, the Fugees came together to play soccer. This wonderful, poignant book is highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review

Selected for Common Reading at more than 20 colleges and One City, One Book programs. Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52204-5 | 336pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook • teacher’s guide themes: group dynamics • Human Rights • Inclusiveness

A HOPE IN THE UNSEEN

Website:

An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League www.RonSuskind.com/HopeintheUnseen By Ron Suskind A popular college Common Reading selection This is the story of cedric Jennings, an African American teenager who is ferociously determined to study his way out of the inner city and capture a piece of the American dream. Author Ron suskind follows Jennings from his early years in high school through his first year at Brown University. This updated edition includes a new chapter on cedric Jennings’s postgraduate professional career. Selected for Common Reading at more than 10 colleges and One City, One Book programs. Broadway | TR | 978-0-7679-0126-0 | 400pp. | $15.99/$19.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: Coming of age • Inclusiveness

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT A Memoir

Website: www.TheKidsareAllRightBook.com

By Diana Welch, Liz Welch, Amanda Welch, and Dan Welch Winner, 2010 Alex Award Told in the alternating voices of four siblings, here is their poignant, harrowing story of the loss of their parents and their subsequent separation from one another. Along the way they retained the resilience and humor that both their mother and father endowed them with— growing up as lost souls, taking disastrous turns along the way, but eventually coming out right-side-up.

Now in paperback

Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-39605-1 | 368pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

Life Stories—Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography

BEATRICE AND VIRGIL

Website: www.Beatrice-And-Virgil.com

A Novel By Yann Martel

rom the award-winning, best-selling author of the common reading favorite Life of Pi comes an ingenious, provocative, and mesmerizing new novel that explores the greatest questions facing humanity—questions about who we are and what we are capable of doing in order to survive. Fate can take many forms. For Henry, it arrives in an envelope from a stranger containing a story by Flaubert, a play featuring two characters named Beatrice and Virgil, and a note signed “Henry,” postmarked with an address in Henry’s own city. From the moment he finds the address and steps into a taxidermist’s shop—a place unlike anywhere he has ever been—Henry’s life is changed. in this extraordinary feat of storytelling, Yann martel poses enduring questions about life and art, truth and deception, and responsibility and complicity. Just as with Life of Pi, martel’s wit, pathos, and probing are sure to hold readers in thrall.

Now in paperback Do not order paperback before 2/22/2011. Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-8129-8154-4 | 224pp. $14.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Discovering Diﬀerences, Ethics, Identity Discussion Guides: Teacher’s Guide Available Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

“dark but divine . . . this novel might just be a masterpiece about the Holocaust . . . martel brilliantly guides the reader from the toosunny beginning into the terrifying darkness of the old man’s shop and europe’s past. everything comes into focus by the end, leaving the reader startled, astonished, and moved.” —USA Today “Brilliant . . . with this short, crisply written, many-layered book, martel has once again demonstrated that nothing tells the truth like fiction. . . . another philosophical winner.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer “a sophisticated fable . . . It might be best described as an artful philosophical novella rather in the spirit of the slim volumes produced by writers of the French enlightenment . . . Beatrice and Virgil is so imbued with passionate moral and intellectual ardor that even the cynical should find it engaging.” —The Wall Street Journal “It is awe-inspiring when a writer hits a high note; goes dancing along the edge of something; hurls himself against enormous questions again and again. . . . writers such as martel are a kind of human sacrifice. It cannot be easy to imagine a way into suffering, come out, lead others into and through it.” —Los Angeles Times “a follow-up every bit as satisfying as Life of Pi . . . martel’s readers will be rewarded with a flashing finale . . . without giving too much away, the ending is as shocking as lightning on a sunny day. the goosebumps subside, but Beatrice and Virgil leaves an imprint after its cover is closed. the protagonist Henry may have failed to write a literary book about the Holocaust, but Yann martel succeeds in spades.” —St. Louis Post Dispatch

About the Author: Yann Martel Yann maRteL was born in Spain in 1963. After studying philosophy at university, he worked odd jobs and traveled before turning to writing at the age of twenty-six. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed 2002 Man Booker Prize–winning novel Life of Pi, which was translated into thirty-eight languages and spent fifty-seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Yann Martel lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.

www.CommonReads.com

Excerpt from Beatrice and Virgil Henry’s second novel, written, like his first, under a pen name, had done well. it had won prizes and was translated into dozens of languages. Henry was invited to book launches and literary festivals around the world; countless schools and book clubs adopted the book; he regularly saw people reading it on planes and trains; Hollywood was set to turn it into a movie; and so on and so forth. Henry continued to live what was essentially a normal, anonymous life. Writers seldom become public figures. it’s their books that rightly hog all the publicity. Readers will easily recognize the cover of a book they’ve read, but in a café that man over there, is that . . . is that . . . well, it’s hard to tell—doesn’t he have long hair?—oh, he’s gone. When he was recognized, Henry didn’t mind. in his experience, the encounter with a reader was a pleasure. After all, they’d read his book and it had an impact, otherwise why would they come up to him? The meeting had an intimate quality; two strangers were coming together, but to discuss an external matter, a faith object that had moved them both, so all barriers fell. This was no place for lies or bombast. Voices were quiet; bodies leaned close together; selves were revealed. sometimes personal confessions were made. one reader told Henry he’d read the novel in prison. Another that she’d read it while battling cancer. A father shared that his family had read it aloud in the aftermath of the premature birth and eventual death of their baby. And there were other such encounters. in each case, an element of his novel—a line, a character, an incident, a symbol—had helped them pull through a crisis in their lives. some of the readers Henry met became quite emotional. This never failed to affect him and he tried his best to respond in a manner that soothed them. in the more typical encounters, readers simply wanted to express their appreciation and admiration, now and again accompanied by a material token, a present made or bought: a snapshot, a bookmark, a book. They might have a question or two they hoped to ask, timidly, not meaning to bother. They were grateful for whatever answer he might give. They took the book he signed and held it to their chest with both hands. The bolder ones, usually but not always teenagers, sometimes asked if they could have their picture taken with him. Henry would stand, an arm over their shoulders, smiling at the camera. Readers walked away, their faces lit up because they’d met him, while his was lit up because he’d met them. Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting—that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art—and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort. As for fame, fame felt like nothing. Fame was not a sensation like love or hunger or loneliness, welling from within and invisible to the outside eye. it was rather entirely external, coming from the minds of others. it existed in the way people looked at him or behaved towards him. in that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have. Henry was essentially unchanged by the success of his novel. He was the same person he had been before, with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. on the rare occasions when he was approached by a reader in a disagreeable way, he had the last weapon of the writer working under a pseudonym: no, he wasn’t XXX, he was just a guy named Henry.

Excerpted from Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel. Copyright © 2010 by Yann Martel. Excerpted by permission of Spiegel & Grau, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Fiction to Talk About

Author Spotlight: Lisa see LIsa see is the New York Times bestselling author of Peony in Love, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Flower Net (an Edgar Award nominee), The Interior, and Dragon Bones, as well as the critically acclaimed memoir On Gold Mountain. The Organization of Chinese American Women named her the 2001 National Woman of the Year. She lives in Los Angeles.

SHANGHAI GIRLS

Website: www.LisaSee.com

A Novel By Lisa See Honor Book, Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) Literature Award—Fiction A fascinating new novel from author lisa see about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while remaining inextricably bound to the old. “a buoyant and lustrous paean to the bonds of sisterhood.” —Booklist “see is masterly in her powerful depictions of the prejudice and harsh treatment the sisters encounter as they try to assimilate into the strange new world of Los angeles. possibly the best book yet from the author of Peony in Love; highly recommended.” —Library Journal Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-8053-0 | 336pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Inclusiveness • Regionalism: asia

SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN A Novel By Lisa See A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age lily is haunted by memories of who she once was and of the beloved person, long gone, who defined her existence. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of chinese history, deeply moving and sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most profound human relationships: friendship between women. A moving exploration of the power of memory, the ramifications of oppression, and the redemptive powers of language. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-6806-4 | 288pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook • teacher’s guide themes: gender Issues • Inclusiveness • Regionalism: asia

Also by Lisa See:

DREAMS OF JOY: A Novel

May 2011

Do not order before 5/31/2011. Random House | HC | 978-1-4000-6712-1 | 336pp. | $26.00/$30.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Lisa See i have always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up. With Shanghai Girls, i explored the chinese American immigration experience, Angel island, paper sons, and a little-known period in our history centered around the so-called confession Program. At the same time, i believe that history is not about dates, laws, and wars. Rather, it’s something that happens to real people. do we stand by our principles or give in to racism, bigotry, and the angry mob? can we endure what the world throws at us and still maintain our humanity and our love for our families? do we rise to the challenges and succeed, or do we fail? When i wrote Shanghai Girls, i thought a lot about the people in my own family who had come here from china during the last one hundred or so years. i was particularly interested in the women who journeyed here in arranged marriages at a time when almost no chinese women were allowed to enter the United states. They were often married to men who came to this country as paper sons— chinese who were able to get around the chinese exclusion Act of 1882 by falsely claiming that they were the sons of American citizens. These were my aunties and uncles when i was growing up, and i wanted to honor their experience and, by extension, the continuing immigration experience of today, no matter where people come from. We all have someone in our families who was brave enough, scared enough, or crazy enough to leave their home countries and come to America. many of those people passed through ellis island, where they had to answer twenty standard questions and pass a physical exam. The process was hard and sometimes humiliating, but this was nothing compared to what happened to chinese immigrants at the Angel island immigration station in the san Francisco Bay. Although immigrants from other countries passed through Angel island relatively easily, chinese immigrants had to answer anywhere from two hundred to one thousand questions. They were detained and questioned for weeks, months, and sometimes years, at which point they would finally be allowed to the enter the country, be deported back to china, or commit suicide. even after the chinese landed, life was not easy. if Angel island is still unknown to most people, then the confession Program of 1957 is an even greater secret. it was a government “amnesty” program that specifically targeted those chinese who came here as paper sons. People were asked not only to confess their own fake citizenship status, but also to rat out friends, business associates, and even family members. Better yet, if you could accuse someone of being a communist, then you would be given your legitimate American citizenship. The program ripped apart families, destroyed businesses, and pushed people to face their moral and ethical values. issues of immigration, legal status, assimilation, love for your home country and love for your new country, and when and how we become “American” are all very much part of our continuing national conversation, which is one of the reasons that Shanghai Girls has been read in so many schools and been selected for one Book, one city programs. The novel provides a jumping off point to talk about issues that are at the core of so many students’ lives, to pursue cross-disciplinary discussions (American history, Western history, Asian American studies, gender studies, literature, sociology), and to open new areas of research. i look forward to visiting your campus to engage your community in an important and productive discussion. Lisa See

Fiction to Talk About

FICtIon to taLk aBout

FAHRENHEIT 451

Website: www.RayBradbury.com

By Ray Bradbury Winner of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters internationally acclaimed, Fahrenheit 451 is Ray Bradbury’s landmark story of a future society where books are outlawed and only one man awakens to the evils of censorship. “Frightening in its implications . . . Mr. Bradbury’s account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating.” —The New York Times

Selected for Common Reading at Illinois Central College, Randolph-Macon College, Xavier University, and others. Ballantine | TR | 978-0-345-41001-6 | 192pp. | $13.95/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Del Rey | MM | 978-0-345-34296-6 | 208pp. | $6.99/$8.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • teacher’s guide themes: ethics • group dynamics • science & society

THE OUTWARD ROOM By Millen Brand Afterword by Peter Cameron When it was first published in 1937, this novel, set against the backdrop of the Great depression, was hailed for its unflinching portrait of a young woman struggling with mental anguish. Harriet demuth suffers a breakdown after her brother’s death and is committed to a mental hospital, where her psychiatrist, a follower of Freud, does little that helps her. Harriet escapes and heads for new York city. As she ekes out an existence and falls in love, a young woman’s recovery of her sense of self unfolds, even in a time and place marked by poverty and despair. NYRB Classics | TR | 978-1-590-17359-6 | 304pp. | $14.95/$16.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • perseverance/personal strength

ECOTOPIA

Website: www.ErnestCallenbach.com

By Ernest Callenbach

in the tradition of Huxley, orwell, and Verne, callenbach’s controversial and thoughtprovoking novel describes a future in which the West coast states have seceded to form ecotopia, their own environmentally-sound nation. “Callenbach gives us a vivid, comprehensive, positive vision of an ecologically sustainable world. Essential reading for all who care about the earth’s future.” —Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point

Selected for Common Reading at Muskingum College. Bantam | TR | 978-0-553-34847-7 | 192pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: environment • ethics • science & society

THE GUARDIANS A Novel

Website: www.AnaCastillo.com

By Ana Castillo From American Book Award-winning author Ana castillo comes a suspenseful, moving novel about a sensuous, smart, and fiercely independent woman. Barely making a living as a teacher’s aide in a new mexican border town, Tía Regina is also raising her teenage nephew, Gabo, a hardworking boy who has entered the country illegally and aspires to be a priest. When Gabo’s father disappears while crossing over from mexico, Regina fears the worst. “Castillo writes fiction and poetry of earthy sensuality, wry social commentary, and lyrical spiritualism that confront the cruel injustices accorded women and Mexicans in America, legal —Booklist (starred review) and otherwise.” Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7571-0 | 240pp. | $14.00/$16.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: gender Issues • Human Rights • Inclusiveness

www.CommonReads.com

FICtIon to taLk aBout

AWAIT YOUR REPLY

Website: www.DanChaon.com

A Novel By Dan Chaon This unsettling novel follows three young people struggling to carve out lives against the backdrop of broken families and desolate landscapes. miles desperately searches for his schizophrenic twin brother across the globe. Ryan learns he is adopted and flees the only life he has ever known. lucy, recently orphaned, leaves town with her teacher, only to end up in a run-down mansion in nebraska, with little money and vague plans. They come together unexpectedly and shockingly, leaving readers to grapple with questions of identity and the possibility that there is no such thing as a true, core self. Ballantine Books | TR | 978-0-345-47603-6 | 368pp. | $15.00/$17.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity

EVERY MAN DIES ALONE

Website: www.HansFallada.com

By Hans Fallada Translated by Michael Hofmann This never-before-translated masterpiece—by a heroic, bestselling writer who saw his life crumble when he wouldn’t join the nazi Party—is based on a true story. it presents a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the nazis and tells the sweeping, deeply-stirring saga of one working-class couple who decides to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front. With nothing but their grief and each other against the awesome power of the Reich, they launch a simple, clandestine resistance campaign that soon has an enraged Gestapo on their trail and a world of terrified neighbors and cynical snitches ready to turn them in. Melville House | TR | 978-1-935-55404-2 | 544pp. | $18.95/$23.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics • Identity • social Justice

HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET A Novel

Website: www.JamieFord.com

By Jamie Ford “Jamie Ford’s first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.” —Lisa See, best-selling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Selected for the 2010 Schenectady One County, One Book Program. Ballantine | TR | 978-0-345-50534-7 | 320pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook • teacher’s guide themes: Coming of age • discovering diﬀerences • Inclusiveness • Regionalism: seattle

BOMBINGHAM By Anthony Grooms From the war-torn rice fields of Vietnam to the riot-filled streets of Birmingham, Alabama, Bombingham is the affecting story of a middle-class black family shattered by personal chaos. As young, African American Walter Burke struggles to make sense of his presence in Vietnam, he wonders if the victory of the civil rights movement meant nothing more than earning the right to fight a battle of another kind. Selected for Common Reading at Alabama A&M University, Florida A&M University, Marquette University, SUNY Oswego, and others. One World/Ballantine | TR | 978-0-345-45293-1 | 320pp. | $13.95/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: teacher’s guide themes: Coming of age • Inclusiveness • social Justice

Fiction to Talk About

FICtIon to taLk aBout

INTO THE FOREST

Website: www.JeanHegland.com

A Novel By Jean Hegland set in the near future, Into the Forest follows two young sisters struggling to make sense of their world when both society and their family collapse. Hegland’s exploration of the sisters’ relationship reveals the full dimension of their bond and what it means to be human and alive in this new world. “The plot draws readers along at the same time that the details and vivid writing encourage rereading. . . . a truly admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell’s 1984 and Russell Hoban’s Ridley Walker.” —Publishers Weekly

Selected for Common Reading at Bowling Green State University, Santa Rosa Junior College, and others. Dial Press Trade Paperback | TR | 978-0-553-37961-7 | 256pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio • eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • perseverance/personal strength Now in paperback

THE BLUE NOTEBOOK A Novel By James A. Levine This work of fiction, by mayo clinic doctor James A. levine, takes readers into the life of Batuk, a precocious fifteen-year-old girl from rural india who was sold into sexual slavery by her father when she was nine. As Batuk navigates the grim realities of the common street— a street of prostitution in mumbai where children are kept in cages as they wait for customers to pay for sex—she manages to put pen to paper, recording her private thoughts and stories in a diary, a place where she finds hope and beauty in the bleakest of circumstances. All of the U. s. proceeds from this novel will be donated to the international centre for missing & exploited children (www.icmec.org). Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52872-6 | 224pp. | $14.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Human Rights

THE GLASS ROOM By Simon Mawer newlyweds in 1930s czechoslovakia, Viktor and liesel landauer are progressive (he is Jewish, she gentile), cultured, and urbane. Their house—a modernist masterpiece—reflects not only their taste, but also the optimism and creativity of modern europe. But as World War ii encroaches, the landauers flee their home. The glass house becomes a nazi base, then a safe house for refugees, until the landauers return to a post-war europe utterly scarred and changed forever. in The Glass Room, the tragedy of dashed idealism is beautifully expressed through the saga of one family and their delicate, forward-looking home. Other Press | TR | 978-1-59051-396-5 | 416pp. | $14.95/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: group dynamics • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

LAY THAT TRUMPET IN OUR HANDS By Susan Carol McCarthy

Website: www.SusanCarolMcCarthy.com

inspired by real events, Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands is a novel that tackles race politics in the south before the civil Rights movement unlike any other book in recent memory. “Reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, McCarthy’s debut novel is an engrossing story of one —Library Journal girl’s coming-of-age during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement.” “The best fiction always bears a strong resemblance to real life . . . McCarthy blends fact, —The Washington Post memory, imagination and truth with admirable grace.”

Selected for Common Reading at numerous high schools, colleges, and communities. Bantam | TR | 978-0-553-38103-0 | 288pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: Inclusiveness • Regionalism: the american south • social Justice

www.CommonReads.com

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THE TIME IT SNOWED IN PUERTO RICO

Website: www.SarahMcCoy.com

A Novel By Sarah McCoy in the tradition of The House on Mango Street and Annie John comes a novel about the struggle to break free from the people who raised us and the difficulties of leaving behind one’s homeland for places unknown. Both joyous and heartbreaking, it is the story of a girl discovering her power and finding the strength to decide what sort of woman she’ll become. “In the voice of her lovably defiant adolescent narrator, Sarah McCoy tells a story of magic, myth, and mystery amid political and cultural unrest . . . A delightful debut.” —Sheri Reynolds, author of A Gracious Plenty Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-46017-2 | 224pp. | $13.00/$15.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • gender Issues • Identity • Regionalism: puerto Rico

THE SPEED OF DARK: A Novel

Website: www.ElizabethMoon.com

By Elizabeth Moon Winner, 2004 Nebula Award The Speed of Dark is an exploration into the world of lou Arrendale, an autistic man who is offered a chance to try a brand-new experimental “cure” for his condition. now lou must decide if he should submit to a surgery that might completely change the way he views the world and the very essence of who he is. The Speed of Dark is a fascinating work of fiction about choice and consequences. Selected for Common Reading at Clemson University, Ohio State University, and SUNY Oswego. Ballantine | TR | 978-0-345-44754-8 | 368pp. | $13.95/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Del Rey | MM | 978-0-345-48139-9 | 384pp. | $6.99/$10.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • Identity • science & society

THE LAST TOWN ON EARTH: A Novel

Website: www.ThomasMullen.net

By Thomas Mullen set against the backdrop of one of the most virulent epidemics that America ever experienced—the 1918 influenza pandemic—Thomas mullen’s powerful first novel is a tale of morality in a time of upheaval. A chance encounter and the shots that are fired as a result have deafening reverberations throughout the town of commonwealth, escalating until every human value—love, patriotism, community, family, friendship—not to mention the town’s very survival, is imperiled. Colleges and Universities: Bowling Green State University, Montana State University—Billings, Murray State University, Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, University of South Carolina Aiken, Western Michigan University Honors Program, Whitman College; One City, One Book: A Tale For Three Counties (Batavia, NY), Together We Read (Stanwood and Camano Island, WA), and others. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7592-5 | 432pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: ethics/decision making • group dynamics • science & society

BAKING CAKES IN KIGALI: A Novel By Gaile Parkin

Now in paperback

in the wake of genocide, the residents of a Rwandan apartment building turn to Angel Tungaraza for sympathy, comfort—and cake. Recent arrivals from Tanzania, Angel, her husband, and their grandchildren have come to Rwanda for her husband’s new job and a fresh start after their own tragedies. Angel’s kitchen becomes a refuge for people who, despite the official policy of reconciliation, continue to struggle with the effects of war. This is a moving and deft portrayal of what comes after war, when the healing has only just begun. Bantam | TR | 978-0-385-34344-2 | 336pp. | $15.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: genocide • group dynamics • Human Rights

Fiction to Talk About

FICtIon to taLk aBout

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT By Erich Maria Remarque This is the classic anti-war novel about young German soldiers during World War i. Twenty-year-old Paul Baumer’s world of work, duty, culture, and progress is shattered with the first bombardment in the trenches, and he vows to fight against the principle of hate that pits young men of the same generation against each other. Few other books have ever achieved such dramatic acclaim or enduring success. American journalist Henry louis mencken described the novel as “unquestionably the best story of the World War.” Selected for Common Reading at St. Louis Community College. Ballantine Books | TR | 978-0-449-91149-5 | 304pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Ballantine Books | MM | 978-0-449-21394-0 | 304pp. | $6.99/$8.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: Coming of age • group dynamics • Regionalism: europe

THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS A Novel By Arundhati Roy Winner of The Booker Prize Winner of the prestigious man Booker Prize in 1997, The God of Small Things was Arundhati Roy’s stunning debut. The story of Rahel and estha, twins born to a wealthy indian family, begins in the late 1960s as communism was turning the traditional caste system upside down. The story shifts between two eras: the present, where Rahel visits her mute brother; and the past, one day in december that tore the family apart. As vivid as it is powerful, Roy’s novel is reminiscent of Faulkner, Rushdie, and márquez—a sure-fire contemporary classic that should be added to every student’s library. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7965-7 | 352pp. | $15.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • Regionalism: India

SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH By Tayeb Salih Translated by Denys Johnson-Davies Introduction by Laila Lalami

Named most important Arabic novel of the 20th century by the Arab Literary Academy in Damascus

After years of study in europe, this novel’s young narrator returns to his village by the nile in the sudan. There, he discovers mustafa, an enigmatic stranger who tells him about his own years in london and the series of deadly relationships with european women that led him back to his native land. Then mustafa suddenly disappears, leaving the young man—whom mustafa has asked to look after his wife—stranded in an unsettled, violent no-man’s-land between europe and Africa, caught between tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement, from which no one will escape unaltered or unharmed. NYRB Classics | TR | 978-1-590-17302-2 | 184pp. | $14.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: discovering diﬀerences • Inclusiveness • perseverance/personal strength

MAJOR PETTIGREW’S LAST STAND

Website: www.HelenSimonson.com

A Novel By Helen Simonson

Now in paperback

major ernest Pettigrew, a retired widower, clings to the traditional values of english life—honor, decorum, and a proper cup of tea—as the rest of the world moves farther away from those ideals and the suburbs encroach on the english countryside. However, Pettigrew’s unexpected friendship with mrs. Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper, forces him to confront the twenty-first century. This witty novel deftly portrays late-life romance, the still-potent effects of cultural and racial barriers, and a memorable, dignified man who strives to live his beliefs. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-8122-3 | 384pp. | $15.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • Inclusiveness • perseverance/personal strength

www.CommonReads.com

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THE MOUNTAIN LION By Jean Stafford Afterword by Kathryn Davis eight-year-old molly and her ten-year-old brother Ralph are inseparable, presenting a united front against authority figures and the suburban world they know. When they begin spending summers on their uncle’s ranch in colorado, they relish their encounters with an entirely different world, one that is wild and immediate. However, time inevitably passes, and as molly and Ralph confront impending adulthood, this coming-of-age tale veers into unconventional and tragic terrain. “Hard to match for subtlety and understanding . . . written wittily, lucidly, and with great respect for the resources of the language.” —The New Yorker NYRB Classics | TR | 978-1-590-17352-7 | 248pp. | $14.95/$17.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: Coming of age • environment • ethics

OLIVE KITTERIDGE Fiction

Website: www.ElizabethStrout.com

By Elizabeth Strout Winner 2009–Pulitzer Prize A Library Journal Best Book of 2008 olive Kitteridge deplores the changes occurring in her town of crosby, maine, and the world, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a former student who has lost the will to live; olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse. As the townspeople grapple with their problems, olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition— its tragedies, its joys, and the endurance required of us. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7183-5 | 304pp. | $14.00/$16.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • group dynamics • perseverance/personal strength

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE By Kurt Vonnegut

For more books by Kurt Vonnegut, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yalov8r

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the world’s great anti-war books. centering on the infamous fire-bombing of dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the journey we undertake as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know. “Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement.” —The Boston Globe Dell Books | MM | 978-0-440-18029-6 | 224pp. | $7.99/$9.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Dial Press Trade Paperback | TR | 978-0-385-33384-9 | 288pp. | $15.00/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: ethics/decision making • Identity • perseverance/personal strength

MRS. SOMEBODY SOMEBODY

Website: www.WinnWriter.com

Fiction By Tracy Winn Winn chronicles the characters who inhabit the troubled mill town of lowell, massachusetts, depicting their struggles and hopes over the course of the twentieth century. Winn paints a permeating portrait of the town and its people, including a millworker who dreams of marrying rich and becoming “mrs. somebody somebody”; an undercover union organizer whose privileged past shapes her cause; and a Korean War veteran who returns to the wife he never really knew. Winn’s insight into class and human nature, combined with her nuanced prose, make Mrs. Somebody Somebody truly shine.

Now in paperback

Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-8145-2 | 224pp. | $14.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • group dynamics • Regionalism: massachusetts/new england

Fiction to Talk About

LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT

Website: www.PeterBuffett.com

Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment By Peter Buffett

ost people probably think that having billionaire investor Warren Buffett as a father makes life far from average. But, as Peter Buffett explains, an individual’s success has more to do with building personal character than using a family platform to get ahead. in Life Is What You Make It, Buffett, a musician, composer, and philanthropist, shares the important lessons learned from his parents—part of an upbringing focused on the importance of honorable values as individuals in a community and what we are able to give back.

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“peter Buffett has given us a wise and inspiring book that should be required reading for every young person seeking to find his or her place in the world, and for every family hoping to give its daughters and sons the best possible start in life.” —Bill Clinton “knowing and admiring peter as we do, Life Is What You Make It captures his spirit, passion, and values beautifully. as parents, it's the kind of dialogue about our life's purpose and opportunity we’re having with our children. we will have everyone in our family read and discuss Life Is What You Make It.” —Bill and Melinda Gates

Crown Archetype | HC | 978-0-307-46471-2 | 272pp. $23.99/$27.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $12.00 Do not order paperback before 5/3/2011. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-46472-9 | 272pp. $14.00/$16.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Leadership & Motivation, Life Skills, Service Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

“Life Is What You Make It is the ultimate book of common sense— except it isn't common. Because peter Buffett could have had a derived identity and chose not to, he has power and credibility when he tells us how to find a unique self by doing what we love. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn't benefit from this spirited, wise, and friendly book.” —Gloria Steinem “with homespun, heartfelt wisdom, peter Buffett ponders how to make a meaningful life while making a living. Life Is What You Make It is thought-provoking, worthwhile reading.” —Ted Turner “In his searching book, Life Is What You Make It, peter Buffett challenges us all to balance ambition and service, personal goals and work for the common good. It is a book of value and honesty.” —Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues “Very few have the upbringing of peter Buffett . . . not the privilege but rather the restrained usage of that privilege. a very real family with knots and gnarls like any other, but with an eerie commitment to serve ideas and the human race in general, whether that be through philanthropy, song or conversation . . . or this . . . folk wisdom for the folks.” —Bono

About the Author: Peter Buﬀett peteR BuFFett is an established composer/producer. He has released six albums on his own label, as well as eight albums on other labels. Highlights of his film and television work include “Fire Dance” from Dances with Wolves and the score for 500 Nations. Buffett’s theatrical production, Spirit: The Seventh Fire, was produced on the National Mall. With his wife Jennifer, he is co-chairman of the NoVo Foundation, an organization which seeks to promote equality, end violence, and combat exploitation of women globally by empowering females as agents of change.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Peter Buffett What path will you choose? This is a very personal book about values and identity. i make no claim of special expertise in the conduct of life, still less in the mystery of life’s meaning. But here and there in this book, i do presume to offer advice, and i make no apology for that. There are certain things i passionately believe to be true. Where i can make a case for those truths, where i think i can provide some clarity and perspective, i have not been shy about doing so. By the luck of the draw—what my father calls “winning the ovarian lottery”—i was born into a caring and supportive family, a family whose first and most important gift to me was emotional security. over time, as a bonus that came as a gradual and wonderful surprise, my family also got to be wealthy and distinguished. my dad, Warren Buffett—by dint of hard work, solid ethics, and steady wisdom—has become one of the richest and most respected men in the world. But those are his accomplishments, not mine. no matter who your parents are, you’ve still got your own life to figure out. life moves incredibly fast, and it is filled with distractions. As clutter builds up at the periphery—streams of data coming from every direction and the unremitting bombardment of the media—it becomes ever more challenging to filter out the noise, to remember where the center is. But, ultimately, we create the lives we live. This is our greatest burden and greatest opportunity. it is also the most basic, bedrock premise of everything i have to say in this book. What sort of people will we choose to be? Will we choose the path of least resistance—or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction? in our dealings with others, will we shy away from intimacy and honesty and tolerance—or will we open ourselves to robust and candid relationships? in our work lives, will we settle for making a living or aim at the higher goal of earning a life? Answers to these questions can only come from inside each of us. The goal of this book is simply to raise the questions, to offer a framework for thought and, i hope, discussion. Your life is yours to create. Be grateful for the opportunity. seize it with passion and boldness. Whatever you decide to do, commit to it with all your strength . . . and begin it now. Peter Buffett

Inspiration and Guidance

THE FREEDOM WRITERS DIARY How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them

Website: www.FreedomWritersFoundation.org

By The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

traight from the front line of urban America, The Freedom Writers Diary is the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.

Broadway | TR | 978-0-385-49422-9 | 336pp. $14.99/$18.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading: Austin Peay State University, Bloomsburg University, Indiana University Northwest, Western New England College, and others. Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Leadership & Motivation, Life Skills, Social Justice

Also Available by The Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell:

TEACHING HOPE Stories from the Freedom Writer Teachers and Erin Gruwell Foreword by Anna Quindlen Broadway | TR | 978-0-7679-3172-4 | 384pp. $14.99/$18.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old english teacher at Wilson High school in long Beach, california, erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. one day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature. she angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust—only to be met by uncomprehending looks. so she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a lifechanging, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders.” With funds raised by a “Read-a-thon for Tolerance,” they arranged for miep Gies, the courageous dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in california, where she declared that erin Gruwell’s students were “the real heroes.” Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition—appearances on “Prime Time live” and “All Things considered,” coverage in People magazine, a meeting with U.s. secretary of education Richard Riley—and educationally. All one hundred fifty Freedom Writers have graduated from high school and are now attending college. With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an uplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. The authors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to The Tolerance education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition. erin Gruwell is now a visiting professor at california state University, long Beach, where some of her students are Freedom Writers. “there are lives lost in this book, and there are lives saved, too, if salvation means a young man or woman begins to feel deserving of a place on the planet. . . . what could be more soul-satisfying? these are the most influential professionals most of us will ever meet. the effects of their work will last forever.” —from the Foreword by Anna Quindlen

About the Author: erin Gruwell eRIn gRuweLL, the Freedom Writers, and her nonprofit organization The Freedom Writers Foundation have received many awards, including the prestigious Spirit of Anne Frank Award. Gruwell has appeared on several television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Primetime, Good Morning America, and The View. Gruwell is also a charismatic motivational speaker who spreads her dynamic message to students, teachers, and business people around the world. She lives in southern California.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Erin Gruwell since the publication of The Freedom Writers Diary in 1999, i have had the extraordinary experience of speaking at hundreds of schools and more than sixty colleges and universities. At every school and university, the message has been loud and clear: our “little book that could” inspires parents, educators, and students alike, to find hope and to believe in change. now, ten years later and with more than a million copies sold, that one simple message is the impetus for the release of The Freedom Writers Diary, 10th anniversary edition, with ten unique follow-up journal entries written by ten of the original Freedom Writers, after they shattered stereotypes by graduating high school and pursuing college. it wasn’t always easy for the Freedom Writers to take that second chance and stick with it, but they did. college presents new challenges and opportunities to learn and grow, and learning from mistakes and finding what works takes time. i learned three lessons on my first day teaching at Wilson High school: my students hated reading, they hated writing, and they hated me. As i tried to find a way to reach my students, i was faced with the reality that, for many of them, homelessness, gangs, drugs, suicide, and foster care took erin gruwell at precedence over Hamlet and The Odyssey. in my eyes, none of those things austin peay state university could stop them from graduating from high school. determined, i tailored my curriculum to include books written by kids who lived in war-torn countries. Anne Frank, elie Wiesel, and Zlata Filipovic gave my students hope and the knowledge that the best way to fight is by picking up a pen. Tolerance and acceptance were the cornerstones of every lesson plan that i ever implemented, and what i discovered was that i needed to proactively demonstrate the power of inclusion. To reach every student, i needed to engage, enlighten, and empower them. so, with every element of my curriculum, we followed those three steps. i always knew that my first aim as a teacher was to give a voice to the voiceless. so, after miep Gies, (the woman who hid the Frank family), visited my students and told them not to let Anne’s death be in vain, i encouraged my students to continue writing in their journals. once my students began to write their story, they soon realized that they could rewrite their ending. After the release of Paramount Pictures’ Freedom Writers, we found ourselves visiting different colleges and schools around the country, and we discovered that our story was universal. college students were finding hope and inspiration in the pages of The Freedom Writers Diary. i am filled with hope every time i visit a college, such as Austin Peay state University that created a Peay Read program in order to “create a collaborative, integrative learning community,” choosing The Freedom Writers Diary as the 2010 common reading book. There are so many other universities choosing The Freedom Writers Diary for their common reading programs, and i have seen the outstanding benefits of its use. The Freedom Writers and i are constantly humbled and exhilarated by the number of college students who are reading The Freedom Writers Diary, telling us how it has impacted their lives and inspired them to do something—to become a teacher, to pursue social activism, and most of all, to be a catalyst erin gruwell with a student at austin peay state university for change. Erin Gruwell

Inspiration and Guidance

LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS

Website: www.NickVujicic.com

Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life By Nick Vujicic

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“i do believe my life has no limits! i want you to feel the same way about your life, no matter what your challenges may be. As we begin our journey together, please take a moment to think about any limitations you’ve placed on your life or that you’ve allowed others to place on it. now think about what it would be like to be free of those limitations. What would your life be if anything were possible?” —nick Vujicic, from Life Without Limits

Doubleday Religion | HC | 978-0-307-58973-6 | 256pp. $19.99/$22.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $10.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Leadership & Motivation, Peer Group Skills, Perseverance/Personal Strength, Service Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

ife Without Limits is an inspiring book by an extraordinary man. Born without arms or legs, nick Vujicic overcame his disability to live not just independently but a rich, fulfilling life, becoming a model for anyone seeking true happiness. now an internationally successful motivational speaker, his central message is that the most important goal for anyone is to find their life’s purpose despite whatever difficulties or seemingly impossible odds stand in their way. nick tells the story of his physical disabilities and the emotional battle he endured trying to deal with them as a child, a teen, and a young adult. “For the longest, loneliest time, i wondered if there was anyone on earth like me, and whether there was any purpose to my life other than pain and humiliation.” He shares how his faith in God has been his central source of strength and explains that once he found his own sense of purpose—inspiring others to make their lives and the world better—he found the confidence to build a rewarding and productive life without limits. nick offers practical advice for realizing a life of fulfillment and happiness by building trust in others, developing supportive relationships, and gaining strength for the journey. He encourages the reader by showing how he learned to accept what he could not control and focus instead on what he could.

“Life Without Limits will inspire and move you.” —Pasadena Star News “nick’s anecdotes about living without limbs (e.g., a story of getting the best of a grade-school bully) make this a worthwhile read.” —Library Journal

About the Author: Nick Vujicic nICk VuJICIC is a motivational speaker and the director and founding president of the non-profit organization, Life Without Limbs. A longtime resident of Australia, he now lives in southern California. He continues to travel around the world, spreading a message of perseverance and hope.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Nick Vujicic i have spoken in thirty-eight countries, at hundreds of events, and to millions of people around the globe, but never have i told the story of my physical disabilities as up-close and personal as i do in Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life. With this book, i invite readers to travel with me on a path paved with hope and filled with both laughter and tears. Today, too many students enter college with little concept of themselves and their goals. many find themselves lost because of thick depression, heavy drinking, and a sense of purposelessness. By sharing my own personal experiences, i let my readers see through the eyes of a person living with a disability. i do this not to paint my pain as more important or greater—it is not—but to relate to the pain that already exists so profusely in each human being. i invite my readers to know that a bright future can be found despite one’s circumstances and emotions. Having been born without arms and legs, i encounter many unique challenges— challenges that once knocked me into deep depression and overwhelming feelings of loneliness. By age ten, i was so depressed that i attempted suicide. Bullying, low self-esteem, and despair engulfed me. during my late teens, i finally received the strength to find hope outside my circumstances and to find purpose within them. With my newfound courage, i became a motivational speaker, using my story to inspire others. now, as both a speaker and author, i offer to you my book—a place where i share with my readers strategies to overcome hardship and find happiness, despite any circumstance. While Life Without Limits tells the story of my life, it crosses cultural boundaries to communicate themes far greater than my life-story. it tells of human hope, resilience, and purpose. it covers topics such as perseverance, attitude, trust, and self-worth. it equips readers with the tools to become confident, fulfill their potential, and lead a meaningful life. if you need a discussion piece that inspires students to reflect deeply within their own lives, consider my book for your common reading program. i love my life just as i love yours. Together, the possibilities for us are just ridiculous. so, what do you say? shall we give it a go, mate? For more information, please visit www.attitudeisaltitude.com. Nick Vujicic

Inspiration and Guidance

InspIRatIon and guIdanCe

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

Website: www.MitchAlbom.com

An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson By Mitch Albom After learning of his former professor’s terminal illness, mitch Albom flew to Brandeis University, reunited with his old friend, and returned every Tuesday thereafter to visit with him. morrie schwartz turned these visits into one final “class”: a lesson in how to live. This book is a magical chronicle of mitch and morrie’s time together. Selected for Common Reading at Concordia University, SUNY New Paltz, University of Buﬀalo, University of North Dakota, and others. Broadway | TR | 978-0-7679-0592-3 | 224pp. | $13.99/$17.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • ethics/decision making • Identity

WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE? The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question

Website: www.PoBronson.com

By Po Bronson “What should i do with my life?” Po Bronson was asking himself that very question when he decided to write this book—an inspiring exploration of how people successfully transform their lives, and a template for how we can answer this question for ourselves. Filled with humor, empathy, and insight, this edition includes nine new stories not included in the hardcover edition. “Brimming with stories of sacrifice, courage, commitment and, sometimes, failure, the book will support anyone pondering a major life choice or risk without force-feeding them pat solutions.” —Publishers Weekly

Selected for Common Reading at Rutgers College, Sam Houston State University, and others. Random House | TR | 978-0-375-75898-0 | 432pp. | $16.00/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Ballantine | MM | 978-0-345-48592-2 | 464pp. | $7.99/$10.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • Identity • Life skills

CHARACTER IS DESTINY Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember By John McCain with Mark Salter in Character Is Destiny, John mccain and mark salter tell the stories of celebrated historical figures and lesser-known heroes whose values exemplify the best of the human spirit. mccain illustrates these qualities with moving stories of triumph against all odds, righteousness in the face of iniquity, hope in adversity, and sacrifice for causes which extend beyond self-interest. Selected for Common Reading at DeSales College. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7445-4 | 336pp. | $15.95/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: ethics/decision-making • Identity

MANDELA’S WAY: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage By Richard Stengel; Preface by Nelson Mandela

Website: www.MandelasWay.com

nelson mandela—freedom fighter, former President of south Africa, and figure of inspiration worldwide—offers fifteen essential life lessons, drawn from his decades of activism. more than a biography of a great man, this is a guide to how to live a meaningful and legacy-rich life—under any circumstances. “This delightfully inspiring book is a philosophical guide to how we can aspire to achieve Mandela’s grace and how we can draw upon his greatness as a model for the comportment of —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University our lives each day.”

Selected for Common Reading at Loyola University Chicago. Crown Archetype | HC | 978-0-307-46068-4 | 256pp. | $23.00/$27.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $11.50 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Leadership & motivation • Life skills • social Justice

www.CommonReads.com

InspIRatIon and guIdanCe

MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE One Man’s Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary

Website: www.Bill-Strickland.com To watch a video of Bill Strickland speaking at the Random House Luncheon during the First Year Experience® 2010 Conference, go to: http://tinyurl.com/334reoj

By Bill Strickland with Vince Rause macArthur Fellowship “genius” award winner Bill strickland has spent the past thirty years transforming the lives of thousands of people through manchester Bidwell, the jobs training center and community arts program he founded in Pittsburgh. Working with corporations, community leaders, and schools, he and his staff strive to give disadvantaged kids and adults the opportunities and tools they need to envision and build a better, brighter future. Make the Impossible Possible ultimately teaches us how to build on our passions and strengths, dream bigger and set the bar higher, achieve meaningful success, and inspire the lives of others. Selected for Common Reading at Frank Phillips College, Indiana University Pennsylvania, Juniata College, Kendall College, Mt. Union College, North Dakota State University, Penn State-New Kensington, Purdue University, University of Southern Indiana, Voorhees College, Winthrop University, and others. Crown Business | TR | 978-0-385-52055-3 | 240pp. | $14.00/$17.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Leadership & motivation • service • social Justice

ZEN MIND, BEGINNER’S MIND By Shunryu Suzuki Afterword by David Chadwick This succinct yet expansive introduction to Zen is presented here in a special 40th anniversary edition. excerpts from several of Zen master shunryu suzuki’s lectures are printed here, illuminating his perspective on topics such as the transience of the material world and the nature of enlightenment, as well giving practical suggestions regarding the practice of meditation, focusing on such matters as posture and breathing. Rather than promoting a dogmatic approach to a religious tradition, the book offers the elliptical and paradoxical musings of a master, encouraging the reader to embark on his or her own Zen path.

NEW

Shambhala | HC | 978-1-590-30850-9 | 144pp. | $24.95/$28.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $12.50 themes: Identity • Life skills • perseverance/personal strength

THE SEARCH FOR FULFILLMENT Revolutionary New Research That Reveals the Secret to Long-Term Happiness

Website: www.SearchForFulfillment.com

By Susan Krauss Whitbourne “This remarkable exploration into the core dimensions of human nature takes readers of all ages on a journey of liberation. The psychologically revolutionary ideas that flow through every chapter free us from simplistic pop-psych notions of ‘midlife crises’ and confining agebased passages. We come to appreciate the extraordinary fluidity of human nature as people mature and embark on life’s dynamic pathways, ideally toward personal fulfillment on triumphant or authentic paths. Emerging from solid, original research, The Search for Fulfillment’s sound, practical advice can transform your life. This is a must-read-now book.” —Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Eﬀect and The Time Paradox Ballantine Books | HC | 978-0-345-49999-8 | 224pp. | $25.00/$29.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $12.50 alternative Formats: eBook themes: Identity • Life skills • science & society

Inspiration and Guidance

BEST PRACTICES AND Tips from the Random House

3 LAUNCHING A PROGRAM Relax, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Take advantage of the many resources available to learn about other reading programs. A good starting point is a monograph published by the national Resource center for e First-Year experience® and students in Transition, Common Reading Programs: Going Beyond the Book. in addition, there are a number of campuses with well-established and successful reading programs, and the professionals who run these programs are usually very happy to share advice and tips (as well as opinions on books they have used in the past.) When starting a program, it’s important to include various stakeholders on campus. When it is time to select a book, you will most likely want some type of campus selection committee. e committee should comprise members of a variety of constituencies, including faculty, student services and academic aﬀairs administrators, as well as students. ink carefully about the scope, mission, learning outcomes, and assessment of your program. For example, will the program be a first-year/new student reading program or a campus-wide (common) reading program? What will be the purpose of the program (this may influence the type of books you will be considering)? How will you inform students about the program and when will they be expected to read the book? Again, take advantage of the numerous resources available to help answer these questions.

3 SELECTING A BOOK ink about the following questions when considering eligible books for your program: does the book tell a good story? is the book accessible? Will a variety of students at diﬀerent reading levels and with diﬀerent interests be able to engage with the book? To this point, consider page count. A good rule of thumb is the “300 Rule:” if possible, choose a book with 300 pages or less. does it feature a protagonist students can relate to? ey might be the same age or be dealing with similar life situations (change, challenge, adversity). does the book touch on teachable themes, such as inclusiveness/diversity, global engagement, etc.? do the themes of the book correspond to your university’s strategic mission? campus engagement and resources will be easier to secure if you make this relationship clear. if having the book’s author speak is part of the plan for your reading program, it is important to consider author availability during the book selection process. speaking fees and availability can vary considerably. You don’t want to go through all the work to select a book, only to find out that the author’s speaking fee will not work for your budget, or s/he is not available to speak on the dates you need!

3 ENGAGING STUDENTS Use digital and social media to your advantage. Use your university’s existing social media webpage or account (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) or create a dedicated page for your common reading program to create a community around the book selection, author visit and other programming activities. many authors, publishers and lecture agencies have existing material that can be posted to your community page. Get students prepared. consider introducing the book during the spring or summer prior to the next academic year. For example, if first-year students receive the book during orientation, the orientation leaders and various speakers can advertise the program and build a feeling of community around the reading of the text. Also, think about having students turn in questions for the author as part of an assignment and have a moderator pose the questions to the author. is will incentivize students to come up with more original questions, will save on time during the Q&A and will avoid dreaded “dead air.” make the questions a contest, such as: “can you stump the author?” Have students create materials in advance of the author’s visit. essay collections are a great idea. You may also consider multimedia approaches—such as blogs, videos, or website. students tend to share more on a personal level when they are not

H ave ques t ions for the Advisor y B oar d?

PROGRAMMING IDEAS First-Year Advisory Board

in an open forum and the medium can be anonymous. Another idea is to have students autograph and annotate the author’s book. in addition to brief messages to the author, annotations can call attention to the passages of the book students find most compelling or personally resonant. Authors appreciate diﬀerent perspectives on and reactions to their work, and they can take home the annotated book as a memento to commemorate the event! Organize campus-wide discussion groups. some campuses use faculty, some use upper-class students, and some use a combination of faculty, staﬀ, and students to facilitate these discussions. Again, this is a good way for the first-year student to feel that they are a part of the university community. Link the book to as much existing campus programming as possible. can the Film studies dept. co-sponsor a viewing of a film related to your book? Are there plays, arts exhibits or other speakers coming to campus that you could tie into? Perhaps student Activities can help as well? Reach out to faculty who teach courses relevant to your book selection, provide them with review copies of the book, invite them to events and ask them to embed the book in their syllabi and courses. Your book selection committee will be a great resource in making these connections.

3 HOSTING AN AUTHOR Is the author represented by an agency or speaker’s bureau? most authors will have an agent, and that will be the person to make inquiries about speaking fees and availability. oen, the book’s publisher will have this information. encourage as many faculty and students as possible read the book in advance of the author visit. in addition to having more enthusiastic readers on campus to help you spread the good word about the book and your program, folks who have already read the book will have more interesting questions for the author, making for a more intelligent and productive discussion. Assign a faculty or administrator to host the author. While one of the benefits of an author visit is for students to engage with the author, it is important to have a faculty member or administrator act as the dedicated host, someone who has the authority to assertively manage appearances—to turn down requests or move an author to the next location, for example. sharing is caring! encourage university departments and divisions to coordinate in advance. Perhaps events may be co-sponsored so the author isn’t pulled in too many directions, and departments can share space, time, money and other resources. consider having one large campus talk that is required of all students. is makes the best use of both your programming time and the author’s time on campus. many authors say that different departments and disciplines actually tend to have questions that are more similar in nature than they are different. even if that is not the case, a diversity of questions is a good thing; it offers a richer conversation when different interests come together, and students learn more. Mix up the formats of events. e most successful visits offer the author and participants a variety of events to keep things fresh and engaging. Have the author speak at a podium for one event, do an on-stage sit-down Q&A at another, and participate in a group interview with faculty at a third. When hosting an author Q&A it’s important to appoint a moderator to move the discussion along. e moderator can address basic factual questions upfront, to allow for a more in-depth exchange during the Q&A. e moderator can also be the person who introduces the author. Following a large campus-wide talk, arrange for smaller, more intimate discussions with faculty and students, in which the author and participants can delve more deeply into topics mentioned in the campus-wide talk. All participants should have attended the larger campus talk so that they come to the breakout sessions with at least a basic knowledge of the book. Give authors “a break” (or two)! in order to provide your participants with the best experience possible, foster an environment that makes the author comfortable, and one that allows them to put their best foot forward. schedule breaks in between sessions and offer some meals “off ”. Arrange to have snacks, water, coffee, and meals available as appropriate. if the author is the key attraction at a meal, make sure they have ample time to eat. Don’t take it personally. When negotiating your author’s visit to campus, there may be many requirements on the part of their agency for travel, lodging, and “down time.” ese are based on the agency’s standard contractual obligations designed to cover a wide variety of celebrity, sports, and other speakers. However, most agencies and authors understand that you have state and university policies that may constrain what you can offer, and will work with you to meet your needs. schedule ample time for planning and negotiation. You should also verify with the author’s agent whether events or speaking engagements may be videotaped or recorded. ey oen have provisions for what is allowable.

Email us at r hacadem ic @r andom hous e.c om

ACTS OF FAITH The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation

For Author Interview, go to: http://tiny.cc/8y9hh

By Eboo Patel Winner, 2010 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion

“i Now in paperback

Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-807-00622-1 | 192pp. $14.00/$16.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading: Luther College, Saint Louis University Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Coming of Age, Discovering Diﬀerences, Inclusiveness, Youth Activism Discussion Guides: Teacher’s Guide Available Alternative Formats: eBook

am an American muslim from india. my adolescence was a series of rejections, one after another, of the various dimensions of my heritage, in the belief that America, india, and islam could not coexist within the same being. if i wanted to be one, i could not be the others. my struggle to understand the traditions i belong to as mutually enriching rather than mutually exclusive is the story of a generation of young people standing at the crossroads of inheritance and discovery, trying to look both ways at once. There is a strong connection between finding a sense of inner coherence and developing a commitment to pluralism. And that has everything to do with who meets you at the crossroads.” so writes eboo Patel at the beginning of his remarkable account of coming of age and coming to understand what led him toward religious pluralism rather than hatred. Growing up outside chicago, subject to a constant barrage of racist bullying, and unsure of what it meant to be muslim, Patel had a gut-wrenching feeling of being excluded from mainstream society. in high school, he rejected everything about his indian and muslim heritage and excelled in academics in an attempt to be like the white Americans around him. in college this illusion came undone as Patel discovered the liberating power of identity politics—and a deep rage at the inequities and hypocrisies of America. Patel soon learned that anger is not an identity, encountering a set of people and ideas that illuminated a different understanding. His most important discovery was not about his relationship with his past, but about his responsibility to make the best part of that past—the possibility of pluralism—a reality in the contemporary world.

“eboo patel is an exciting new voice of a new america: diverse but not divisive, hopeful but not utopian. He speaks for all of us from a rising generation of bright, brown and bold americans who have much to offer a country embarking on a new millennium and in need of new blood.” —Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Executive Director of the Zaytuna Institute

About the Author: eboo Patel eBoo pateL is Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core. He was appointed by President Obama to the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations. He writes “The Faith Divide” blog for The Washington Post and has contributed to numerous publications. An Ashoka Fellow, Patel was chosen by Harvard’s Kennedy School Review as one of five future policy leaders to watch and was selected to join the Young Global Leaders Network of the World Economic Forum.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Eboo Patel Religion can be a bubble of isolation, a barrier of division, a bomb of destruction . . . or a bridge of cooperation. The forces building barriers and bombs are strong—their message dominates the discourse about the role of religion in the world. i wrote Acts of Faith because i believe religion can be a bridge of cooperation, and college students are in a powerful position to build these bridges. on one level, Acts of Faith is my journey of discovery, of how i became an interfaith bridge-builder. college is a time when young people grapple with identity—who they are in a world of people very different from them. one of the compliments i cherish most about Acts of Faith is that the way it tells my personal story helps students understand and articulate their own. on another level, Acts of Faith tells the story of islam, illuminating those dimensions of its scripture, history, and heroes that support interfaith bridgebuilding. campuses tell me that this is extremely useful to them for two reasons. First, much of what students know about islam comes from the evening news, and Acts of Faith offers a much-needed alternative perspective on the faith of 1.5 billion adherents worldwide. second, my approach to islam illustrates a new paradigm for religion in general. Whether the student is a Hindu or a humanist, whether the campus was founded by Jews or catholics, Acts of Faith gets people asking the question: “What is it in my tradition and other traditions that would support interfaith bridge-building?” Finally, Acts of Faith is about a national and global story of the role that religion plays in the world. America is the most religiously diverse nation in human history and the most religiously devout nation in the West at a time of great global religious conflict. We have the chance to be a model of interfaith cooperation, and young people are in a unique position to make us so. But really, Acts of Faith is about the intersection of all three—a historical tradition, a unique global moment, and a personal story. The ultimate message of the book is this: Find those dimensions of your tradition that help you positively impact the world and work with others who are doing the same. There is nothing i love more than engaging with a campus community on the issues raised by my book. since Acts of Faith was published, i have visited nearly fifty campuses, from small liberal arts colleges to large public universities, from ivy league schools in Boston to catholic colleges in the Bay Area. i have given keynote talks to auditoriums with thousands of students, held workshops for faculty teaching courses in religion, and trained staff on how to positively engage the diversity of their campus community. my life changed as a college student, from one focused on my own personal success to one of service and significance. Acts of Faith tells the story of those changes. my goal when i visit campuses is to help change the lives of others. Eboo Patel

History and Society

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS

Website: www.RebeccaSkloot.com To view video of author at DePauw University’s Ubben Lecture, go to: http://tinyurl.com/24h6xux

By Rebecca Skloot Now in paperback

Winner of 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction Winner of 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Young Adult Science Book Award Selected as a Best Book of the Year by over 30 publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post and USA Today

Crown | HC | 978-1-4000-5217-2 | 384pp. $26.00/$32.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 Do not order paperback before 3/8/2011. Broadway | TR | 978-1-4000-5218-9 | 400pp. $16.00/$18.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Selected for Common Reading at more than 30 colleges/universities including: University of Arkansas, University of California Santa Barbara, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Virginia Commonwealth University, and University of Wisconsin, and others. Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Ethics/Decision Making, Human Rights, Science & Society, Social Justice Discussion Guides: Available Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook

er name was Henrietta lacks, but scientists know her as Hela. she was a poor southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances in cloning, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions, with devastating consequences for her family. now Rebecca skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of Hela cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to east Baltimore today, where Henrietta’s children, unable to afford health insurance, wrestle with feelings of pride, fear, and betrayal.

“what is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks really about? science, african american culture and religion, intellectual property of human tissues, southern history, medical ethics, civil rights, the overselling of medical advances? . . . the book’s broad scope would make it ideal for an institution-wide freshman year reading program.” —David J. Kroll, Professor and Chair, Pharmaceutical Sciences, North Carolina Central University “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was an excellent summer reading selection. over 2100 first-year students as well as faculty members, research professionals, and university staff took part in over 80 discussion groups during VCu’s welcome week. Her message inspired students to become passionate and engaged with both learning and inquiry. throughout their first semester, the book continued to serve as an excellent model of research writing for our newest students.” —Daphne L. Rankin, PhD, Associate Vice Provost for Instruction, Virginia Commonwealth University

About the Author: Rebecca skloot ReBeCCa skLoot has taught at the University of Memphis, New York University and the University of Pittsburgh. She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s RadioLab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; Columbia Journalism Review; and elsewhere.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Rebecca Skloot i first learned about Hela cells, and the woman behind them, as a teenager sitting in a freshman biology class. i knew only fragments of Henrietta’s story, but those fragments inspired me to start asking questions—about science and mortality, bioethics, and how i’d feel if my own cells were used in research. i didn’t yet know that her cells had launched a multibillion dollar industry while her children lived in poverty, or that the cells had devastating consequences for the family. Henrietta’s story captures the imagination of students in any number of disciplines, including the sciences, medicine, African American studies, sociology, philosophy, law, bioethics, journalism, and creative writing. i’ve spoken about Hela at schools around the country, where students are transfixed by the story. i tell them that if you could pile all Hela cells ever grown on a scale they would weigh more than one hundred empire state Buildings, and that Hela has been fused with mouse cells to create Henrietta-mouse hybrid cells. it’s the stuff of science fiction, but it’s true, and students love it. combine that with the story of Henrietta’s family—a tale about science, religion, race, and class—and students’ reactions are powerful. during Q&As, the first question is usually: “Wasn’t it illegal to take her cells and use them in research without asking?” The answer is no—not in 1951, and not in 2011. Today, most Americans have their tissue on file somewhere through routine blood tests or biopsies. And since the late sixties, when testing newborns for genetic diseases became required by law, each baby born in the United states has had blood taken, and those samples are often stored and used by scientists. This means that the majority of college students in this country have tissues of their own being used in research, and neither they nor their parents likely realize it. As a college professor, i always look for books that bring together the many disparate fields that students will study throughout their careers and that allow them to explore the real-world consequences of intellectual discoveries. other professors tell me The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks does just that, bringing together health, community, family, ethics, religion, science, storytelling, history, business, law, and humanity. since spring 2010, i have talked about my book at more than one hundred schools nationwide. As a regular guest lecturer who’s also worked as a correspondent for radio and television, i understand the importance of being an engaging speaker, and my talks have been called “moving and engaging of both the heart and mind.” You can visit the events page of my website at Rebeccaskloot.com to see if i’ll be speaking at your school, and you can contact me through the site. i look forward to visiting even more schools as part of their Freshman experience Programs. As a college biology major, i couldn’t have imagined that Henrietta’s story would lead me to become a writer, or that writing this book would be a ten-year journey. There’s no telling what effect this story could have on students. i can’t wait to find out.

©Rebecca Skloot

©DePauw University

Rebecca Skloot

Rebecca skloot talks with students and signs books at depauw university and university of alabama

History and Society

BLIND DESCENT The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth

Website: www.JamesMTabor.com

By James M. Tabor

A NEW

Random House | HC | 978-1-4000-6767-1 | 304pp. $26.00/$31.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Environment, Perseverance/Personal Strength, Science & Society Alternative Formats: eBook

t the beginning of the new millennium, the earth’s deepest cave—the supercave—remained undiscovered. in 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill stone was committed to the vast cheve cave, located in southern mexico and deadly even by supercave standards. on the other side of the globe, the Ukrainian explorer Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the Republic of Georgia. in Blind Descent, journalist James m. Tabor draws on unprecedented access to logs, journals, photographs, video footage, and interviews with the participants to describe the thousand-foot drops, deadly flooded tunnels, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, and mile-long belly crawls encountered along the way. This book ultimately stands as a compelling addition to the literature of scientific discovery.

“a fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.nature conflict. . . . what counts is tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.” —Kirkus Reviews “gripping and well-written account of the treacherous world of deep cave exploration . . . best suited to true-adventure fans or any recreational readers seeking a pulse-raising tale of real-life drama and grim determination.” —Library Journal “ . . . [L]ike The Perfect Storm or Shadow Divers.” —The Washington Post “Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.” —Robert Kurson, author of Shadow Divers

About the Author: James M. tabor James m. taBoR’s last book was the international award-winning Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering’s Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters. The writer and on-camera host of the acclaimed national PBS series The Great Outdoors, Tabor was also co-creator and executive producer for the 2007 History Channel special Journey to the Center of the World. Tabor is a former contributing editor to Outside magazine and Ski Magazine; his writing has also appeared in Time, Smithsonian, Barron’s, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and many other national publications.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from James M. Tabor Agony. Ecstasy. Injury. Death. Betrayal. Brotherhood and sisterhood. Accidents. Triumphs. Unknown realms. Exploration and discovery. Overwhelming obstacles. Ingenious victories. These are some of the reasons why i think Blind Descent would make good reading for first-year students. Here are two great truths: Hockey games, reduced to their essences, are nothing more than two players racing towards the puck; everything else that happens is connecting tissue, secondary, quotidian. The same is true of life. Reduced to its essence, life is a series of critical moments linked by days, months, years, or decades of the stuff we do to pass time. Work. Play. eat. sleep. drive. Party. study, etc. There are some people who are not content to wait for life to bring them critical moments. For a variety of reasons, they go out of their way to create such junctures, often placing themselves in harm’s way to do so. Who are these people? George leigh mallory, the great everest pioneer, who gave his life to the quest. navy lt. donald Walsh, who descended approximately 36,000 feet in the waters of the Pacific in 1961—a feat never repeated. Jacques Yves cousteau, who courted death countless times to open the undersea world for the rest of us. lindbergh. magellan. cortes. messner. Armstrong et al. such people exist today, doing the same things such people have always done. i think of them as the human race’s great forerunners, going places and doing things that no one has ever done before, proving that the rest of us—somehow, some way—could go to those same places and do those same things. Blind Descent is about two such men and the people they lead in their quest to discover and explore the deepest cave on earth. Their actions are on par with those of the great polar explorers, mountaineers, oceaneers. one can even make a credible case that their explorations were as dangerous and isolated as those of the Apollo astronauts. What these people did required taking ultimate risks, (sometimes dying in the process), and undergoing physical, mental, and emotional ordeals that the rest of us can barely imagine, let alone endure. so Blind Descent captures people in the most critical moments imaginable. it explains how and why they got to those moments and how they dealt with them. some reviewers compared my book to The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air, which might seem odd at first glance. Storm was about the ocean; Air the mountains, after all; and Descent is about caves. But all of these books are really about people—people who, by choice rather than chance, find themselves in extremis. come to think of it, in that regard they’re not unlike oedipus, lear, Henry Fleming, and santiago—or, in the real world, columbus, david crockett, John Brown and . . . well, you get the idea. Blind Descent is written as well as i could write it. it’s about people doing ultimate things as well as they can be done. some die. some live. none come back unchanged. This makes for a book worth reading. James M. Tabor

History and Society

HIstoRY and soCIetY

FREEDOM: Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights By Amnesty International USA

NEW

Website: www.AmnestyUSA.org

in honor of its 50th anniversary, Amnesty international, the notable and noble human rights organization, has brought together several internationally acclaimed writers, asking them to contribute stories inspired by the Universal declaration of Human Rights. empathetic and thought-provoking, but never didactic, Paulo coehlo, nadine Gordimer, Yann martel, Joyce carol oates, and many more present ruminations and meditations on struggles for freedom and equality, and efforts against repression and injustice, encouraging an understanding of the victories that have been won and how much more still needs to be done to ensure that the basic rights of all are respected and protected. Broadway | TR | 978-0-307-58883-8 | 432pp. | $16.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics • Human Rights • social Justice

BEYOND FUNDAMENTALISM

Website: www.RezaAslan.com

Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization By Reza Aslan

“In this provocative and engaging book, Reza Aslan shows why he is one of America’s leading analysts of the confusing and frightening forces that confront us. It is Aslan’s great gift to see things clearly, and to say them clearly, and in this important new work he oﬀers us a way forward. He is prescriptive and passionate, and his book will make you think.” —Jon Meacham, author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7830-8 | 240pp. | $16.00/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • Identity • Inclusiveness

Also by Reza Aslan:

NO GOD BUT GOD: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam Random House | TR | 0-8129-7189-2 | 336pp. | $14.95/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook

NOBODIES: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy

Website: www.JohnBowe.wordpress.com

By John Bowe in Nobodies, John Bowe travels from the agricultural quagmires of Florida to the factories and brothels of saipan, filing a first-hand report on the working conditions that our government and our corporations depend on, but are trying their best to ignore. Bowe delivers a sobering look at the moral costs of cheap goods—from orange juice to cut-rate fashions—to which our economy has grown so accustomed. This is rich and vibrant reporting—not a polemic, but a presentation of things as they are on the underside of American commerce. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7184-2 | 336pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: global Citizenship • Human Rights • social Justice

HOLLOWING OUT THE MIDDLE The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America By Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas it is happening across America, and it will have a tremendous impact on the nation’s cultural and economic life—young people are leaving small towns in droves, often with the encouragement of their parents, to seek a more prosperous life elsewhere. But what does this mean for the future of rural communities? carr and Kefalas moved to iowa to speak to some of these young people, and here they present the stories of working-class “stayers,” ambitious and college-bound “achievers,” “seekers” who head off to war, and the “returners” who eventually come back. Their portrait of small-town America is detailed, illuminating—and worrisome. Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-807-00614-6 | 256pp. | $16.00/$18.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: Coming of age • group dynamics • Regionalism: Iowa/the midwest/Rural america

www.CommonReads.com

HIstoRY and soCIetY

FACTORY GIRLS: From Village to City in a Changing China By Leslie T. Chang

Website: www.LeslieTChang.com

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Former Wall Street Journal Beijing correspondent leslie chang investigates the lives of female chinese migrant workers—an enormous and growing population upon whom much of the world’s economic growth depends. A book of global significance that provides new insight into china, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming chinese society, much as immigration remade America a century ago. “Chang’s deeply aﬀecting book tells the story of the invisible foot soldiers who made China’s stirring rise possible.” —The New York Times Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52018-8 | 448pp. | $16.00/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: gender Issues • Regionalism: China/asia • social Justice

PARADISE BENEATH HER FEET

Website: www.IsobelColeman.com

How Women Are Transforming the Middle East

NEW

By Isobel Coleman in the middle east, islam is often used to justify the oppression of women. However, coleman shows how some muslim activists are promoting moderate and progressive interpretations of islam to promote women’s rights. men and women in saudi Arabia, iraq, iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are profiled, illuminating how they are working to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women—using the tenets of islam to support their endeavors. This hopeful book suggests that, by working for women’s rights from within islam, rather than from outside and against it, the middle east and the lives of its women can be transformed. Random House | HC | 978-1-4000-6695-7 | 352pp. | $26.00/$31.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: gender Issues • Human Rights • Inclusiveness

NOTHING TO ENVY: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Website: www.NothingToEnvy.com

By Barbara Demick American journalist Barbara demick interviewed six north Koreans who attempted to build careers, relationships, and lives in north Korea, only to defect when they realized the extent of the government’s deception and abuse of its own citizens. never before has such a penetrating view of contemporary north Korea been published. Readers will be amazed by this insider’s account of the world’s most isolated state.

Now in paperback

“Demick’s potent blend of personal narratives and piercing journalism vividly and evocatively portrays courageous individuals and a tyrannized state within a saga of unfathomable suﬀering punctuated by faint glimmers of hope.” —Booklist (starred review) Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-385-52391-2 | 336pp. | $16.00/$19.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • Human Rights • Regionalism: north korea/asia

SONIC BOOM

Website: www.GreggEasterbrook.com

A Guide to Surviving and Thrivingin the New Global Economy By Gregg Easterbrook With humor, pitch-perfect reporting, and clear, elegant prose, Gregg easterbrook explains why, although economic recovery is on the horizon, the next phase of global change will be problematic. First, he contends that the world is about to become far more globally linked. second, the next wave of global change will be primarily positive: economic prosperity, knowledge, and freedom will increase more in the next fifty years than in all of human history to this point.

Now in paperback

Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7413-3 | 272pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: global Citizenship • group dynamics • Life skills

History and Society

HIstoRY and soCIetY

HOW TO UNDERSTAND ISRAEL IN 60 DAYS OR LESS Written and Illustrated by Sarah Glidden

NEW

sarah Glidden happily signed up for a “Birthright israel” tour (an all-expenses-paid, government-sponsored trip to israel open to young Jews), assuming that she would be confronted with government propaganda and a whitewashed image of the country. However, visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and other sites, she finds herself reconsidering her original assumptions about not only the trip, but israel as a whole and her own Jewish identity. This wry and fresh graphic novel introduces a voice unafraid to tackle the contentious politics of the middle east and the charged personal politics of being young and Jewish today. Vertigo | HC | 978-1-401-22233-8 | 208pp. | $24.99/$28.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $12.50 author available themes: Coming of age • Identity • Regionalism: middle east

THE INNOCENT MAN

Website: www.JGrisham.com

By John Grisham in 1982, a twenty-one-year-old waitress in oklahoma named debra sue carter was raped and murdered. For reasons that were never clear, the police suspected former local baseball star Ron Williamson and his friend dennis Fritz, whom they charged with capital murder. With the prosecution’s case built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts, Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence, and Williamson was sent to death row. This book is a disturbing account of the very real flaws in the criminal justice system. A must-read for those interested in law and justice. Selected for Common Reading at Greensboro College. Dell Books | MM | 978-0-440-24383-0 | 448pp. | $7.99/$11.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 Delta | TR | 978-0-385-34091-5 | 400pp. | $16.00/$20.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook • teacher’s guide themes: ethics/decision making • perseverance/personal strength • social Justice

QUIRK: Brain Science Makes Sense of Your Peculiar Personality By Hannah Holmes NEW

neuroscience has shed light on human motivation and behavior, helping to explain how and why humans, as a species, do what they do. now, Holmes suggests, brain science can explain individual personality traits and even replicate those seemingly unique characteristics in mice. These experiments are illustrating the genetic basis of personality, showing how “personality quirks” have actually played a significant role in the evolution of the human race. Whether you are neurotic, outgoing, or optimistic, your personality contributes to the diversity of humankind, and that diversity, Holmes argues, is key to humankind’s evolutionary success. Do not order before 2/22/2011. Random House | HC | 978-1-4000-6840-1 | 288pp. | $26.00/$30.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Identity • Inclusiveness • science & society

SAY EVERYTHING How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters

Website: www.SayEverything.com

By Scott Rosenberg critics complain that blogs indulge meaningless chatter and navel-gazing. Rosenberg, however, offers a refreshing and convincing argument to the contrary. Blogs have had a major impact on politics, business, and personal lives, breaking major news and creating virtual communities that mean everything to their members. Here, major players in the blogosphere are introduced, as Rosenberg traces the rise of the medium. At the same time, readers are asked to consider the philosophical issues raised by the ubiquity of blogging: How much is too much information online? is anonymity liberating or dangerous? What does “authenticity” mean now—if anything? Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-45137-8 | 416pp. | $15.00/$17.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Communications • group dynamics • Identity

www.CommonReads.com

HIstoRY and soCIetY

NOT QUITE ADULTS: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone By Richard Settersten, Ph.D. and Barbara E. Ray

Now in

The stereotypes about today’s twenty-somethings are familiar: They are immature; won’t paperback commit to marriage, childrearing, and a stable job; and remain too attached to their overbearing “helicopter” parents. However, the data presented here flies in the face of these assumptions. The millennial generation is growing up in a world markedly different than that of their parents; therefore, their different pathways to adulthood may be just what they need to ensure their long-term happiness and success. Because it is so unlike much of what is written about this generation, Not Quite Adults offers a thoughtful read for compelling discussion. Bantam | TR | 978-0-553-80740-0 | 272pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity • peer group skills

THE WOMAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY: An American Journalist in Yemen By Jennifer Steil

Website: www.JenniferSteil.net

Yemen is a conservative muslim country. so, it came as a surprise when a major newspaper in the capital of sana’a asked Jennifer steil—a single, American woman—to teach a journalism class to the staff. she accepted with both curiosity and anxiety. Attempting to promote free speech and impartial journalism, she is confronted by open plagiarism and blatant sexism against female employees. However, she comes to appreciate the complex dignity of muslim women and forges friendships with people whose beliefs seem worlds apart from her own. Broadway | HC | 978-0-7679-3050-5 | 336pp. | $26.00/$31.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: gender Issues • Inclusiveness • Regionalism: Yemen/the middle east

BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME: A True Story By Timothy B. Tyson Winner, Grawemeyer Award for Religion 2007; A 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist; A New York Public Library Book to Remember in the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic work of conscience. Tim Tyson’s riveting narrative of a fiery summer of racial conflict and one family’s struggle to build bridges in a time of destruction is a complex rendering of a true story in which violence and faith, courage and evil, despair and hope all mingle to powerful effect. “Blood Done Sign My Name is a most important book and one of the most powerful meditations on race in America that I have ever read.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

Selected for Common Reading at Furman University, Queens University of Charlotte, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Wisconsin at Richland, University of Wisconsin’s College of Letters and Science, Villanova University, and others. Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-1-4000-8311-4 | 368pp. | $14.95/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Inclusiveness • social Justice

COVERING: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights

Website: www.KenjiYoshino.com

By Kenji Yoshino Winner, 2006 Myers Outstanding Book Award; Winner, 2006 American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Award in Covering, one of the country’s most brilliant young legal scholars fashions a new paradigm of civil rights. drawing on his experiences as a gay Japanese American, Yale law professor Kenji Yoshino argues that the culturally sanctioned suppression of our authentic selves is a harm from which the law should sometimes protect us. more profoundly, he also claims that law will be less important to the civil rights of the future than a common culture of authenticity. Selected for Common Reading at Pomona College, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Virginia Commonwealth University, Yale University, and others. Random House | TR | 978-0-375-76021-1 | 304pp. | $15.95/$19.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: discovering diﬀerences • Identity • Inclusiveness • social Justice

History and Society

COLLEGE RULES!, 3rd Edition How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College By Sherrie Nist-Olejnik, Ph.D. and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, Ph.D.

New Edition April 2011

n updated, expanded edition of the popular guide written by two college professors that gives students a crash course in college survival 101. in a sink-or-swim environment, this handbook is a lifeline, helping students navigate the uncharted waters of university life. now extensively revised, College Rules! shares essential advice and strategies that are not taught in lectures or seminars. students learn how to study effectively, handle stress, prepare for tests, stay motivated, balance academics and a social life, and avoid common rookie mistakes. offering much more than study tips, this go-to guide provides students with the tools they need to thrive, both in their classes and in the campus community. This updated and expanded edition of College Rules! gives students the tools to:

· Study smarter—not harder · Plan their course schedule · Master computerized learning technologies · Figure out their professors’ expectations Do not order before 4/26/2011. Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-607-74001-8 | 336pp. $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

· Research efficiently—at the library and online · Read so they can actually remember things at test time · Organize effective study groups · Feel engaged and interested—even in “yawn” courses

KeY FActs:

· Learn killer test strategies and survive exam week

Selected for Common Reading: Tennessee Wesleyan College

· Avoid common mistakes the easy way—by learning from others’ sad but true stories

Campus Visits: Authors Available

· Set themselves up for stellar recommendations

Themes: Life Skills, Peer Group Skills, Transition Alternative Formats: eBook

“the authors make perhaps their greatest contribution when they talk about the power of college to change how students look at the world.” —The New York Times

About the Authors: sherrie Nist-Olejnik, Ph.D and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, Ph.D. sHeRRIe nIst-oLeJnIk, ph.d., is a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia and the former director of the Division of Academic Enhancement. An active researcher and soughtafter lecturer, she has published numerous articles and textbooks focused on studying and learning at the college level. JodI patRICk HoLsCHuH, ph.d., is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas State University. An award-winning educator, she teaches undergraduate courses on building effective and efficient study habits. She also works with college instructors on enhancing students’ capacity to learn at the university level.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from Sherrie Nist-Olejnik, Ph.D., and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, Ph.D. Transitions—life is full of them. Transitions can be exciting, feared, hopeful, anticipated, or a combination of all of these emotions. The transition to college, in particular, is a milestone that can be a struggle for many. There are lots of reasons why this transition can be difficult, but the main issue may be that there are, to be blunt, unfamiliar “rules” governing college life. Through elementary and secondary school, students have been monitored, prodded to do well, and provided with all sorts of safety nets. in college, this type of regulation falls by the wayside, as students are expected to manage themselves independently. in effect, the rules quickly change. There’s more freedom, and with that freedom comes responsibility—for both one’s successes and one’s failures. Professors do not remind students to stay on top of assignments posted in the syllabi, give them bonus points, reward them for effort alone, or offer them multiple chances to succeed. The idea that with freedom comes responsibility eludes many students in transition. We wrote College Rules! to help students understand the “trade secrets” key to making this transition like a pro. College Rules! provides students with a common language to talk about their successes, as well as any problems that they are experiencing. They learn the importance of monitoring their own grasp of the material, reading critically, understanding the learning process, having a repertoire of research-based learning strategies at their disposal, managing their whole lives (not just their time), and thinking at higher levels by going beyond memorization. This rather “heavy” stuff is presented with humor and with scenarios based on the experiences of students in our own classes. Because the students who have the toughest time making the transition often say that college feels like a “have to” rather than a “want to,” we also provide a means to help students discover (or rediscover) their inner learner. But perhaps most importantly, College Rules! fulfills one of the major roles of a college education: it helps students become life-long learners, who have the ability to learn on their own, regardless of the books they read or the courses they take. We have seen struggling learners transform into efficient and effective students because they took what they learned from College Rules! and ran with it. college became a life-changing experience for them because they could think critically, take responsibility for their own learning, and apply a variety of approaches when the going got tough. And isn’t that what college is all about? each year we are asked to speak at colleges nationwide on how to help students do more than just “get through” college. As experienced teachers, we understand the need to engage our audience and speak about real-life stories relating to what works and does not work. imagine how differently students could end their first year if they were armed with the information about transitioning to college right from the very first day. We look forward to speaking at more schools through the First Year experience program. Sherrie Nist-Olejnik, Ph.D., and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, Ph.D.

Life and College Guides

LIFe and CoLLege guIdes

THE ONE-WEEK JOB PROJECT

Website: www.OneWeekJob.com

One Man, One Year, Fifty-Two Jobs By Sean Aiken like many others of his generation, sean Aiken graduated from college and asked himself, “What should i do with my life?” Thus, he started the one-Week Job Project, where he transformed his uncertainty about his future and traveled around the world, working fiftytwo jobs in fifty-two weeks. All of his wages were donated to charity. inventive and empowering, witty and wise, The One-Week Job Project is a book that will give students the courage to follow their passions. Villard Books | TR | 978-0-345-50803-4 | 320pp. | $15.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Identity • Life skills • peer group skills

THE INVISIBLE GORILLA

Website: www.TheInvisibleGorilla.com

And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us By Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in The Invisible Gorilla, christopher chabris and daniel simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we are actually missing a whole lot. chabris and simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. Crown Archetype | HC | 978-0-307-45965-7 | 320pp. | $27.00/$32.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.50 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Identity • Life skills • peer group skills

MADE TO STICK Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Website: www.MadeToStick.com

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? chip and dan Heath tackle these vexing questions head-on. in this indispensable guide, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax, to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship, to a vision for a new product at sony—draw their power from the same six traits. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick reveals the vital components of winning ideas—and shows us how to make our own messages stick. Random House | HC | 978-1-4000-6428-1 | 336pp. | $26.00/$32.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 authors available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook• teacher’s guide themes: group dynamics • Leadership & motivation • Life skills

SWITCH How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Website: www.HeathBrothers.com

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath This compelling narrative about the difficulty of bringing about genuine, lasting change in ourselves and in others—especially when one has few resources and no title or authority—is a riveting read that will change lives. combining psychology, sociology, management, and case studies from a host of different fields, the authors tell countless stories of people and organizations who have successfully created significant change, by using what the authors call Bright spots to break bigger goals down into more manageable steps—what the authors call small steps. Crown Business | HC | 978-0-385-52875-7 | 320pp. | $26.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $13.00 authors available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: group dynamics • Life skills • social Justice

www.CommonReads.com

LIFe and CoLLege guIdes

Also Available:

CRACKING THE HIDDEN JOB MARKET

NEW

By Donald Asher Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-58008-494-9 | 208pp. | $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Identity • Life skills

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? 2011 A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers

Website: www.JobHuntersBible.com

By Richard N. Bolles Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8270-9 | 368pp. | $18.99/$20.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Identity • Life skills

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? JOB-HUNTER’S WORKBOOK

NEW

By Richard N. Bolles Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8009-5 | 64pp. | $11.99/$12.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: Identity • Life skills

THE CAREER COUNSELOR’S HANDBOOK By Richard N. Bolles Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8870-1 | 320pp. | $19.99/$24.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: Life skills • service

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? FOR TEENS Discovering Yourself, Defining Your Future

Website: www.CarolChristen.com

By Carol Christen, Richard N. Bolles, and Jean M. Blomquist Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-58008-141-2 | 192pp. | $15.99/$19.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: Coming of age • Identity • Life skills

MAJOR IN SUCCESS, 5TH ED. Make College Easier, Fire up Your Dreams, and Get a Great Job By Patrick Combs; Foreword by Jack Canfield Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8865-7 | 208pp. | $14.95/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: Life skills • peer group dynamics

10 THINGS EMPLOYERS WANT YOU TO LEARN IN COLLEGE The Know-How You Need to Succeed By William D. Coplin Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8524-3 | 272pp. | $14.99/$18.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Life skills • peer group skills

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF COLLEGE A Professor, A Dean, and A Student Tell You How to Maximize Your Experience By Peter Feaver, Sue Wasiolek, and Anne Crossman Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8856-5 | 264pp. | $14.95/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: Life skills • peer group skills

LECTURE NOTES: A Professor’s Inside Guide to College Success By Philip Freeman, Ph.D. Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-5800-8754-4 | 160pp. | $14.99/$18.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Life skills • peer group skills

Life and College Guides

THE RAGGED EDGE OF SILENCE: Finding Peace in a Noisy World By John Francis

NEW

Do not order before 3/15/2011. National Geographic | HC | 978-1-426-20723-5 | 272pp. $26.00/$30.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Environment, Leadership & Motivation, Life Skills

n 1972, disgusted by humankind’s poor treatment and destruction of the environment, John Francis started walking, rejecting all forms of motorized transportation. still, he felt he wasn’t doing enough to show his dissent. Therefore, on his twentyseventh birthday, he took a vow of silence; he didn’t utter another word for the next seventeen years. Rather than withdraw into a cloistered, uncommunicative existence, however, Francis earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees, learned to play the banjo, and began working for the U.n. in his previous book, Planetwalker, Francis related the everyday realities of his walking years, presenting a compelling example of how to live one’s political ideals. in The Ragged Edge of Silence, he turns his attention exclusively to the silence he cultivated. However, he moves beyond his own experience, using it as a jumping-off point to ruminate on the history of human attempts at silence and how to achieve silence in an increasingly noisy world. Anecdotes and insights explore the scientifically-proven benefits of silence and the relationship between silence and creativity, while practical techniques explain how everyone can achieve a workable, meaningful state of quiet in their own lives. silence is not a monolithic concept; there is introspective silence and interactive silence, both of which—counterintuitively—offer unique and constructive means of communication. Francis urges us to rethink the place of silence in the world, to embrace it in order to cultivate mindfulness and self-awareness, and to deepen our bonds with others and the environment.

Alternative Formats: eBook

Also Available:

PLANETWALKER: 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence. By John Francis, Ph.D.

For more information, visit www.PlanetWalker.org

2007 Gold Winner—Nautilus Book Awards in the categories of Ecology/Environment and Independent Press After witnessing the devastating effects of the 1971 oil spill in san Francisco Bay, John Francis began a remarkable, solitary pilgrimage that would change his life irrevocably. An amazing human-interest story with a vital message about saving our environment, Planetwalker is also an engaging coming-of-age odyssey, full of the positive experiences, the challenging times, the characters encountered, and the learning gained along the way. Selected for Common Reading at University at South Carolina Upstate. National Geographic | TR | 978-1-4262-0405-0 | 288pp. | $16.95/$20.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: environment • Life skills • Leadership & motivation

About the Author: John Francis JoHn FRanCIs is Founder and Director of the nonprofit environmental education organization Planetwalk and author of Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking, 17 Years of Silence (National Geographic Books, 2008). John has led environmental walks in many countries and consulted on environmental management and sustainable development. He travels the world, speaking on pilgrimage and change. As a National Geographic Education Fellow, John is developing Planetlines, an environmental studies curriculum for grades K-12 and universities.

www.CommonReads.com

Excerpts from the Ragged edge of silence Amid the clamor of day and the quietude of night, it waits for discovery. like the wilderness beside an asphalt road, in a vacant city lot, or park, silence is the refuge and the void to which we are both drawn and repelled. At its edge all creation begins and ends. FFFFFFFF i soon discovered that charles, despite being blind from birth, must have been an individual of strong will and determination to live beyond the boundaries of his sightlessness. He was not satisfied with merely hearing me recount stories of my journey; he wanted to walk the rocky trails and the narrow brushy paths up and down the hills all the way to the sea. He asked me if i would be his eyes. With charles, my walking took on a new dimension. FFFFFFFF “do you hear it?” charles asked….“You don’t hear the plane, do you?” i tilted my head and cupped my hand around my right ear as i listened for the growl of an engine. “i don’t hear it,” i said. “is it a plane?” He nodded his head and said that he had heard it just a moment ago, and that if we continued to listen we would hear it again. in a few moments, we heard the low groan of a small prop plane that passed over the spot where we were standing. charles explained that the sound of the engine as it reached us was not uniform. “You may think that the sound reaches us uniformly as if we were in a smooth sphere.” He waved his hand in a circle above his head. “it doesn’t, because of the wind and maybe some other atmospheric conditions. The result is that we can hear the sound sporadically as the plane approaches until those conditions have minimal effect. it’s like a ragged edge,” he offered triumphantly. Excerpted from the Introduction of The Ragged Edge of Silence: Finding Peace in a Noisy World by John Francis, Ph.D., National Geographic Books, 2011.

Courtesy of Author

Go Green

go gReen

FAREWELL, MY SUBARU: An Epic Adventure in Local Living By Doug Fine

Website: www.DougFine.com

did you know it takes more water to sustain a vegetable crop in new mexico for a year than it would to sustain a Bangladeshi village of five hundred? did you know almost all components of a solar-powered water pump are made in Japan or denmark? did you know it takes 16,000 gallons of jet fuel to fly an organic banana from Honduras to silver city, new mexico? neither did doug Fine. Farewell, My Subaru is the hilarious and inspirational account of a long island suburbanite’s attempt to go green—extreme green—in rural new mexico. Selected for Common Reading at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Villard Books | TR | 978-0-8129-7789-9 | 224pp. | $15.00/$17.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: environment • ethics/decision making • global Citizenship

ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE The Hidden Impacts of What We Buy

Website: www.DanielGoleman.info

By Daniel Goleman “The theme of ecological awareness and environmental sustainability emerged as we considered a variety of books. The selection committee felt that such a theme would oﬀer many options for engagement and use of the book across all colleges and disciplines. It could connect with new university eﬀorts in the area of heightened environmental awareness and action and provide opportunities to facilitate community service options for students and faculty.” —Ron Daniel, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, Virginia Tech

Selected for Common Reading at Virginia Tech. Crown Business | TR | 978-0-385-52783-5 | 288pp. | $16.00/$19.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook • teacher’s guide themes: environment • ethics/decision making • science & society

HOPE BENEATH OUR FEET: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World Edited by Martin Keogh Contributions by Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, and Howard Zinn martin Keogh posed the question “if our world is facing imminent environmental catastrophe, how do i live my life right now?” to a number of prominent thinkers and activists; their responses make up this stimulating collection. Alice Walker, Bill mcKibben, Howard Zinn, and michael Pollan, among many others, offer constructive ways to engage, participate, and make an impact. They offer solutions and approaches that often are at odds, but are nevertheless unified by a sense of possibility, purpose, and passion. Readers will be inspired to perform the suggested solutions themselves, while coming up with their own innovations as well. North Atlantic Books | TR | 978-1-556-43919-3 | 330pp. | $18.95/$21.50 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available themes: environment • Leadership & motivation • science & society

PLENTY: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet

Website: www.100MileDiet.org

By Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon Plenty relates the remarkable, amusing, and inspiring adventures of a canadian couple who make a year-long attempt to eat only foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment. This food-focused experiment offers a way to think about globalization, monoculture, the oil economy, environmental collapse, and community, as the authors reveal a meaningful way to relate to the very essence of human survival: the food we eat. “A funny, warm, and seductive account of how we might live better—better for this earth, —Bill McKibben better for the community, better for our bellies!”

Selected for Common Reading at Humboldt State University. Clarkson Potter | TR | 978-0-307-34733-6 | 272pp. | $13.95/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: environment • science & society • social Justice

www.CommonReads.com

go gReen

THE EARTH’S LAST WILDERNESS

Go to www.2041.com/education for information about a curriculum developed around this book.

A Quest to Save Antarctica By Robert Swan with Gil Reavill

in 1985, when Robert swan walked across Antarctica, the fragile polar environment was not a high priority in his mind. But upon his return, the earth’s perilous state became personal: Robert’s ice-blue eyes were singed a pale gray, a result of being exposed to the sun’s rays passing unfiltered through the depleted ozone layer. His commitment to preserving the environment was born, and in The Earth’s Last Wilderness, swan details his journey to awareness, providing the information and tools readers need to reverse the harm done to the planet thus far and secure its future for generations to come.

Now in paperback

Broadway | TR | 978-0-7679-3176-2 | 304pp. | $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: environment • ethics/decision making • science & society

Also Available:

GREEN VOLUNTEERS 8th Edition By Fabio Ausenda Do not order before 3/29/2011. Universe | TR | 978-88-89060-19-3 | 256pp. | $16.95/$18.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: environment • social Justice

ED BEGLEY, JR.’S GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE LIVING Learning to Conserve Resources and Manage an Eco-Conscious Life

Website: www.EdBegley.com

By Ed Begley, Jr. Clarkson Potter | TR | 978-0-307-40514-2 | 352pp. | $22.50/$27.95 Can. | Exam Copy: $11.25 themes: environment

READY, SET, GREEN Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living

Website: http://www.treehugger.com/readysetgreen/

By Graham Hill and Meaghan O’Neill Villard Books | TR | 978-0-345-50308-4 | 240pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: environment • Life skills

THE WATER BOOK

Now in paperback

A Simple Approach to One of Earth’s Most Precious Resources Edited by Anna Krusinski Do not order paperback before 3/29/2011. Hatherleigh Press | TR | 978-1-578-26345-5 | 128pp. | $11.00/$13.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: environment • science & society

SHIFT YOUR HABIT

Website: www.ShiftYourHabit.com

Easy Ways to Save Money, Simplify Your Life, and Save the Planet By Elizabeth Rogers Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-46530-6 | 288pp. | $14.00/$17.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: environment • Life skills

Go Green

THE ENOUGH MOMENT Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes

Website: www.EnoughProject.org

By John Prendergast with Don Cheadle

n their follow-up to the bestselling Not On Our Watch, which brought awareness to the genocide in sudan, human rights activist John Prendergast and oscar-nominated actor and philanthropist don cheadle present The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes, an empowering look at how people’s movements and inspired policies can stop genocide, child soldier recruitment, and rape as a war weapon in Africa. As Prendergast and cheadle describe, an “enough moment” is defined as that time when outrage triggers action and bystanders become “Upstanders,” or people who take action on behalf of others. They illustrate with such examples:

• A high school student in Chicago started Youth United for Darfur to raise awareness of genocide. • A seventy-eight-year-old retired educator in Seattle founded a coalition of churches and organizations to raise awareness and funds for humanitarian relief. • A young Darfurian woman founded an association of women journalists that use radios and phones to warn towns of militia groups in their area.

Three Rivers Press | TR | 978-0-307-46482-8 | 304pp. $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

KeY FActs: Campus Visits: Author Available Themes: Human Rights, Regionalism: Africa, Social Justice

Prendergast and cheadle shed light on this burgeoning mass movement against human rights crimes, showing how it is composed of citizen activism, social networking, compassion, celebrities, and globalization. They also provide action steps for the interested citizen and interview well-known and influential people on how they have been moved to action by their enough moments. interviews in The Enough Moment include: madeleine Albright, Ann curry, Robin Wright, mia Farrow, and emile Hirsch. “an important, valuable toolkit that will inspire many.” —Kirkus Reviews

Alternative Formats: eBook

About the Authors: John Prendergast and Don cheadle JoHn pRendeRgast is a human rights activist and author. He is co-founder of the Enough Project (EnoughProject.org), an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity. During the Clinton administration, he was involved in a number of peace processes in Africa while he was Director of African Affairs at the National Security Council and Special Advisor at the Department of State. don CHeadLe is an actor, film producer, philanthropist, and author. Cheadle rose to prominence for his supporting roles in the films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean’s Eleven. In 2004, his lead role as Rwandan hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the genocide drama film Hotel Rwanda earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

www.CommonReads.com

A Message from John Prendergast Three of the most horrible scourges facing humanity are genocide (the destruction of people based on their identity), rape as a war weapon (the deliberate destruction of women through targeted sexual violence), and child slavery (children who are forcibly recruited to become killing machines or sex slaves). All three seem overwhelming and intractable, but the reality is that there are specific and concrete solutions that can be implemented, if only there were the political and popular will to do so. Help is indeed on the way. in the last five years, a growing people’s movement has been born in the United states and other countries to stop the genocide in darfur. similarly, there are rapidly expanding international efforts to protect and empower the women of eastern congo, who are subject to sexual violence more extreme than anywhere else in the world, as well as the children of central Africa (the invisible children), who have experienced the highest abduction rates in the world at the hands of the brutal lord’s Resistance Army rebel group. once they learn about these human rights crimes, people are eager to learn how they can make a difference. We’ve learned a lot in the last few years, from our travels around the U.s. meeting concerned citizens, about how to empower people to get involved, how to appeal to a wide cross-section of folks to demonstrate how change happens, and how the individual—working in the context of community—is at the center of change throughout history. The women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the environmental movement, the anti-apartheid movement—all of these were propelled in large part by passionate and dedicated individuals, often small in number at the beginning, who believed in standing up for human rights and human dignity. For the first time in history, we have a real international anti-genocide movement. We also have a growing chorus that could become a movement focused on stopping the destruction of women in the congo. We have a non-traditional, underground phenomenon called “invisible children” sweeping through college campuses, dedicated to finding a solution to the child soldier phenomenon in central Africa. Building the scale and scope of these efforts through this book and associated campaigns provides a unique and historic opportunity to help alter the course of history. The Enough Moment presents the transformative tales of what we call “Frontline Upstanders” from war zones in Africa, “citizen Upstanders” from around the U.s., and “Famous Upstanders” from the world of celebrity, including Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, madeleine Albright, Ryan Gosling, Tracy mcGrady, Ann curry, and mariska Hargitay. The book also provides an expansive menu of action items to empower each reader to become part of the movement. These stories will be channeled into what amounts to a recruitment drive: to help build a meaningful people’s movement dedicated to ending these human rights crimes. Ultimately, all the greatest policy ideas in the world mean nothing if we don’t have a permanent constituency of people behind the ideas, demanding that our elected officials do something. The Enough Moment provides a way for readers to become part of this popular movement against mass atrocities that, if successful, could literally help change the fate of millions of people. John Prendergast

Social Action

THE YOUNG ACTIVIST’S GUIDE TO BUILDING A GREEN MOVEMENT AND CHANGING THE WORLD By Sharon J. Smith

NEW

powerful and practical guide to environmental activism, featuring proven strategies and lessons learned from the winners of earth island institute’s Brower Youth Awards— America’s top honor for young green leaders—The Young Activist’s Guide is now available in paperback. some of the world’s most inspiring and effective leaders aren’t even old enough to vote. in The Young Activist’s Guide, the director of earth island institute’s Brower Youth Awards distills the hard-won lessons of its youth leaders into clear and effective strategies for getting organized, taking action, and making environmental changes that matter. This easy-to-follow, definitive resource explains how to plan a campaign, recruit supporters, hold a rally, raise money, attract media attention, pass legislation, lobby politicians, and more in order to make a significant and sustainable impact on the health of our planet. Contents Foreword by Julia Butterfly Hill Acknowledgments

Do not order paperback before 2/22/2011. Ten Speed Press | TR | 978-1-58008-561-8 | 224pp. $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00

Contributors Introduction: If You Want to Go Far, Go Together 1. Find Your Passion 2. Create an Action Plan

KeY FActs:

3. Build a Green Movement

Campus Visits: Author Available

4. Spread Your Message

Themes: Environment, Global Citizenship, Leadership & Motivation

5. Politics

Alternative Formats: eBook

6. Corporate Campaigns 7. Protest with Power 8. Make Media Headlines 9. Grow the Green 10. Green Your Campus 11. Change the World Index

About the Author: sharon J. smith sHaRon J. smItH is the director of Earth Island Institute’s Brower Youth Awards, a program that honors the best and brightest environmental leaders in the United States under twenty-three years of age. She has worked extensively with youth and student networks in the global justice, peace, and environmental movements. Smith graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with degrees in conservation and resource studies and anthropology.

www.CommonReads.com

There are 18 million college and university students in the United states, and billions of dollars are spent at these educational institutions each year. The collective environmental footprint of students is enormous, making the academic universe a perfect place to spark conversations about sustainability. no wonder, then, that students are hungry for stories, tools, and solutions that will help them make a difference on a large scale.

A Message from Sharon J. Smith

sharon J. smith (pictured left) at the 2009 Brower

Youth awards ceremony in san Francisco, Ca. i wrote The Young Activist’s Guide to Building a Green Movement and Changing the World in part to make the invisible visible. While we hear lots about the adults who are solving environmental problems, an enormous amount of groundbreaking work has been undertaken by students, who simply saw a problem and then rallied their peers to change the status quo. i wanted to shine a spotlight on amazing youth such as Jessie-Ruth corkins, whose science project saved her school $90,000 and greened its heating system, and Billy Parish, whose small student group became one of the most influential coalitions in America addressing climate change.

my hope is that these stories will serve as a catalyst, showing ordinary people how the seemingly impossible is actually possible. The eco-heroes in my book made national headlines for passing legislation, founding lasting nonprofits, protecting local wildlands from bulldozers, and raising millions of dollars for sustainability—all before their twenty-third birthdays. my book offers students a roadmap to sparking their own green movements locally, using the best practices generated by their own peers. i invite you to consider adopting my book for your common reading program, as a way to open a dialogue about the very real environmental challenges young people are inheriting in the twenty-first century. As we know, conversation is our richest source of solutions and inspiration, and every local challenge is best met with a locally crafted solution.

my book is just the beginning: i am available for speaking engagements, as are many of the individuals featured in the success stories in the book. Please feel free to contact me at www.buildagreenmovement.org to request a visit. i’d like to close with margaret mead’s words. As many times as i have read them, they never lose their power—especially in light of my own experience watching students succeed in dizzying ways in their own ventures: “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Sharon J. Smith

Social Action

soCIaL aCtIon

WORLD VOLUNTEERS: 4th Edition The World Guide to Humanitarian and Development Volunteering By Fabio Ausenda and Erin McCloskey When it comes to humanitarian volunteering, how does one choose the right organization that matches their interest, experience, age, and availability? This guide is a great tool for people without previous volunteering experience abroad who want to get involved in humanitarian aid projects throughout the world. The projects listed can be either short or long-term for professionals who want to take a leave of absence or for retired professionals who want to make their skills and experience available to help others. For young people without volunteering experience abroad, the World Volunteers guide lists many organizations offering work-camps to help familiarize them with development and humanitarian work worldwide. Universe | TR | 978-88-89060-13-1 | 256pp. | $16.95/$20.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 themes: Leadership & motivation • service • social Justice

SHOWING UP FOR LIFE Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime By Bill Gates, Sr. and Mary Ann Mackin Foreword by Bill Gates Through a wide-ranging arpeggio of stories and anecdotes, lessons and insights, inveterate do-gooder Bill Gates, sr.—lawyer, activist, husband, father, philanthropist—conveys the values and principles he’s learned in life, has instilled in his children, and now practices on a world stage as the co-chair of the Bill and melinda Gates Foundation. Broadway Business | TR | 978-0-385-52702-6 | 208pp. | $13.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Leadership & motivation • service • social Justice

DO IT ANYWAY The New Generation of Activists

Website: www.CourtneyEMartin.com

By Courtney E. Martin Young people today are apathetic and not interested in political activism or social change. That, at least, is what older generations claim—but courtney martin presents a very different view. she depicts the lives and careers of eight young activists, including a prison social worker; an eighth-grade teacher in the Bronx; a former soldier working to end violence against women in the military; and Rachel corrie, the activist killed in the Gaza strip while protesting israeli policies against Palestinians. meet this new generation of activists and be inspired to create change in your own world and beyond. Beacon Press | TR | 978-0-807-00047-2 | 224pp. | $16.00/$18.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: service • social Justice

CITIZEN YOU Doing Your Part to Change the World

Website: www.CitizenYou.org

By Jonathan Tisch with Karl Weber Foreword by Cory Booker This is a stirring call to “active citizenship,” which moves beyond charity and volunteerism, advocating instead a holistic, systemic approach to changing the world. This call to action will inspire readers to join this empowering and world-changing mission. “Tisch documents a shift from volunteerism to active citizenship, less about alleviating symptoms and more about addressing root causes in problems like poverty, hunger, homelessness, and disease. By the time a concluding list of 51 ways to ‘join the movement’ rolls around, it’s likely Tisch will have inspired readers to take him up on one of them.” —Publishers Weekly Crown | HC | 978-0-307-58848-7 | 288pp. | $24.00/$28.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $12.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Leadership & motivation • service • social Justice

www.CommonReads.com

pHILosopHY

ETHICS The Essential Writings Edited by Gordon Marino Philosopher Gordon marino skillfully presents an accessible, provocative anthology of both ancient and modern classics on matters moral. The philosophers represent 2,500 years of thought—from Plato, Kant, and nietzsche to Alasdair macintyre, susan Wolf, and Peter singer—and cover a broad range of topics, from timeless questions of justice, morality, and faith, to the hot-button concerns of today, such as animal rights and gender issues. This modern library edition is the perfect single-volume reference for students, teachers, and anyone eager to engage in reflection on ethical questions, including “What is the basis for our ethical views and judgments?” Modern Library | TR | 978-0-8129-7778-3 | 640pp. | $18.00/$21.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: discovering diﬀerences • ethics/decision making • Identity

THE LIFE YOU CAN SAVE How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty

Website: www.TheLifeYouCanSave.com

By Peter Singer in The Life You Can Save, philosopher Peter singer makes the irrefutable argument that giving will make a huge difference in the lives of others without diminishing the quality of our own. This book is an urgent call to action and a hopeful primer on the power of compassion—when mixed with rigorous investigation and careful reasoning—to lift others out of despair. Used for: Wesleyan Integrative Summer Experience. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-8156-8 | 240pp. | $15.00/$17.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • Leadership & motivation • social Justice

THE BLACK SWAN: Second Edition The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Website: www.FooledByRandomness.com

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb A black swan is a highly improbable event that is unpredictable, carries a massive impact, and later appears more predictable than it was. Why do we not acknowledge these black swans until after they occur? According to Taleb, humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and repeatedly fail to consider what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities; too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize; and not open enough to rewarding those brave enough to imagine the “impossible.” Selected for Wellesley Reads 2010. Random House | TR | 978-0-8129-7381-5 | 480pp. | $17.00/$20.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • group dynamics

Philosophy

moneY matteRs College students today face a world of economic uncertainty. It is vital that these students be equipped with the skills essential for navigating this new economy. With books by acclaimed personal financial experts Suze Orman and David Bach, students learn to make smarter financial decisions, while developing an understanding of the nature of today’s economy.

Author Spotlight: suze Orman suze oRman is the author of nine consecutive New York Times bestsellers and has hosted six PBS specials based on her books. She is the host of the award-winning Suze Orman Show, which airs on CNBC and Sirius/XM radio, and a contributing editor to O: The Oprah Magazine.

For more books by Suze Orman, go to http://tinyurl.com/yemdtdq

THE MONEY CLASS Learn to Create Your New American Dream By Suze Orman

March 2011

in 2010, the American dream may very well have been dashed. Paying the everyday bills, let alone saving for college or buying a house, is a challenge. suze orman offers a bold, inspiring call to redefine the American dream, showing how economic security, and even prosperity, is still attainable. she explains how to escape credit-card debt and invest wisely, even if you are just starting your career. orman knows how to thrive in this new economic landscape—and she shares this knowledge in this necessary, timely book. Do not order before 3/8/2011. Spiegel & Grau | HC | 978-1-4000-6973-6 | 304pp. | $26.00/$30.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook

Also by Suze Orman:

SUZE ORMAN’S ACTION PLAN New Rules for New Times suze orman’s bestselling financial action plan provides up-to-date information on new legislation that could affect how individuals will achieve their financial goals. includes: an explanation of new Fico practices and a new strategy for dealing with credit card debt; guidance on how to live within one’s means; and strategies to keep individuals on the path to achieving his or her goals in this new age of financial honesty. Plus an all-new chapter on kids and money—how to give children a solid financial education, no matter their age. Spiegel & Grau | TR | 978-0-8129-8155-1 | 256pp. | $9.99/$12.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook

www.CommonReads.com

moneY matteRs Author Spotlight: David Bach daVId BaCH is the author of several bestselling books including The Automatic Millionaire and Fight for Your Money. Bach has appeared several times on The Oprah Winfrey Show to share his strategies for living and finishing rich, and in several episodes of the CNBC special The Millionaire Inside. His FinishRich® seminars are the leading financial seminars in North America, having been taught by financial advisors to more than half a million people in more than 2,000 cities. Website: FinishRich.com.

For more books by David Bach, go to http://tinyurl.com/ya5g6c4

DEBT FREE FOR LIFE The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom NEW

By David Bach david Bach helps readers close the door on debt and open the door to true financial freedom. He offers a new philosophy made for today—a practical, inspirational, and paradigm-shifting approach to finance that teaches students how to pay down debt and adopt a whole new way of living. With step-by-step advice and online tools available exclusively to readers, Bach shows how to revolutionize one’s finances and become debt-and-worry-free. in these lean times, it’s still possible to live financial dreams. david Bach shows his readers how. Crown Business | HC | 978-0-7679-2986-8 | 256pp. | $19.99/NCR | Exam Copy: $10.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook

Also by David Bach

FIGHT FOR YOUR MONEY How To Stop Getting Ripped Off and Save a Fortune in Fight For Your Money, financial guru and consumer advocate david Bach has written the ultimate guide to making smarter financial decisions and protecting yourself from companies that want to separate you from your hard-earned income. starting with an A to Z list of items for which you are paying too much—your cell phone, cable bill, cars, credit cards, insurance, airfare, hotels and many more—Bach shows how you are being taken. Then the “Fight for Your money Toolkit” shows you how to fight back, with sample letters, call scripts, and real-life stories of ordinary people who have fought back and won. Broadway | HC | 978-0-7679-2984-4 | 448pp. | $26.00/NCR | Exam Copy: $13.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook

GO GREEN, LIVE RICH 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying By David Bach and Hillary Rosner Broadway | TR | 978-0-7679-2973-8 | 192pp. | $14.95/NCR | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook

Money Matters

CHRIstIan InteRest Select Titles for Christian Colleges

WATERBROOK MULTNOMAH PUBLISHING GROUP WaterBrook Press is committed to publishing books that both intensify and satisfy the elemental thirst for a deeper relationship with God—books for Christian living and spiritual growth, inspiring works of fiction, and illuminating Bible study resources. Many of these books are appropriate for First-Year and Freshman Reading programs at Christian colleges. The books collected here will help encourage reflection and discussion among your incoming first-year students, who will begin their academic life with a shared experience—ready to discuss the views and stories of others and, thus, ready to share their own as well.

LIFE, IN SPITE OF ME

Website: www.ReachingYouMinistries.com

Extraordinary Hope After a Fatal Choice By Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer distraught by the deaths of four friends and her grandmother, reeling from being raped by a friend, Anderson sank deep into depression and decided that the only way to cope was to die. she laid down on railroad tracks as a train approached, expecting it all to be over soon— only to realize, after the train had passed over her, that she was still alive, but both of her legs had been severed. This is a heartfelt memoir of one young person’s approach to dealing with massive emotional and physical trauma, finding a path of meaning out of darkness. Multnomah Books | HC | 978-1-60142-252-1 | 224pp. | $19.99/$23.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $10.00 author available • alternative Formats: eBook themes: Coming of age • Identity

DO HARD THINGS A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

Website: www.TheRebelution.com

By Alex Harris and Brett Harris Foreword by Chuck Norris in August 2005, Alex and Brett Harris started what is now the most popular christian teen blog on the internet. They describe the “Rebelution” as “a teenage rebellion against the low expectations of an ungodly culture.” Written by teens for teens, this is the handbook for adolescents who are rebelling against pervasive low expectations and reaching for their Godgiven potential. Filled with examples from the Bible, the authors’ personal experiences, and contemporary youth culture, this book will positively empower your teen. Multnomah Books | HC | 978-1-60142-112-8 | 256pp. | $17.99/$22.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $9.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • Leadership & motivation • peer group skills

START HERE Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are By Alex Harris and Brett Harris with Elisa Stanford With their first book, Do Hard Things, eighteen-year-old twins Alex and Brett Harris urged teens to reach beyond low expectations and maximize their potential to create change. With Start Here, they address the practicalities of the mission, answering questions such as, “How do i get started? What do i do when i get burned out? What’s the best way to inspire others?” engaging stories of real, young people who have taken up the call illustrate how the brothers’ ideas are already being put into practice and demonstrate how anyone can harness his or her passion in the pursuit of world-changing goals. Multnomah Books | TR | 978-1-60142-270-5 | 176pp. | $12.99/$15.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 author available • alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Leadership & motivation • peer group skills • service

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CHRIstIan InteRest RADICAL

Website: www.RadicalTheBook.com

Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream By David Platt Although it is a point often glossed over by mainstream churches, Jesus made difficult demands of his followers, insisting that they leave behind their families, their homes, and all the conveniences of their daily lives. American christians, Platt argues, are not living truly christian lives, but instead are enjoying the creature comforts afforded by the American dream, while convincing themselves that such an existence is compatible with Jesus’s teachings. Platt invites the reader to confront the reality of what Jesus asks of us. Jesus demands radical obedience, and Platt imbues his plea with a sense of radical urgency. Multnomah Books | TR | 978-1-60142-221-7 | 240pp. | $14.99/$17.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • Identity

Website: www.NextChristians.com

THE NEXT CHRISTIANS The Good News About the End of Christian America By Gabe Lyons

Although more than 76 percent of Americans self-identify as christian, churches today face declining attendance, waning influence, and an abysmal public perception. despite this state of affairs, Gabe lyons sees reason to hope. in the wake of the stunning research presented in his best-selling book, unChristian, which revealed the growing disenchantment among young generations for traditional christianity, lyons has witnessed the beginnings of a new iteration of the faith. in The Next Christians, he introduces us to believers across the christian spectrum who are reclaiming the mantle of christianity, offering a fresh interpretation that is engaged, authentic, and beautiful.

NEW

Doubleday Religion | HC | 978-0-385-52984-6 | 240pp. | $19.99/$22.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $10.00 alternative Formats: eBook themes: ethics/decision making • Identity

SUN STAND STILL: What Happens When You Dare to Ask God for the Impossible

Website: www.SunStandStill.org

By Steven Furtick From an innovative, fresh, young evangelical voice comes this call to “audacious faith”— that is, faith that doesn’t shrink from asking for the impossible, from bold action, or from believing it can change the world.

Now in paperback

steven Furtick felt a calling, at age sixteen, to found a church. Today, at age thirty, he is lead pastor of elevation church in charlotte, north carolina—one of the fastest-growing churches in the nation. Furtick’s own life is an example of an audacious approach to faith and of committing oneself to the fulfillment of one’s most deeply-held and cherished beliefs and hopes. Multnomah Books | TR | 978-1-60142-322-1 | 224pp. | $14.99/$16.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Coming of age • Leadership & motivation • service

THE WALK Clear Direction and Spiritual Power for Your Life

Website: www.ShaunAlexander.com/2010/09/The-Walk-2

By Shaun Alexander if you are ready to start walking with God—that is, truly walking with God, rather than lagging behind or running ahead of Him—this is the book for you. shaun Alexander, your companion as you undertake this journey, explains that there are five stages of spiritual maturity, starting at the stage of Unbeliever, and moving through Believer, example of christ, Teacher, and imparter. evolving through each stage, you will find your life transformed as you learn to grow in wisdom and grace. The changes you will undergo will have positive benefits for both you and those around you.

NEW

WaterBrook Press | HC | 978-0-307-45951-0 | 240pp. | $17.99/$19.99 Can. | Exam Copy: $9.00 alternative Formats: audio edition • eBook themes: Identity • Life skills

For more titles, visit www.WaterBrookMultnomah.com WaterBrook/Multnomah

autHoR/tItLe Index GERTRUDA’S OATH ..............................................21

10 THINGS EMPLOYERS WANT YOU TO LEARN IN COLLEGE ........................................55

Christen, Carol, Richard N. Bolles, and Jean M. Blomquist ........................................55

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF COLLEGE ..................55

ACTS OF FAITH ....................................................42

CITIZEN YOU ......................................................64

GLASS ROOM, THE ..............................................30

Aiken, Sean ........................................................54

Coleman, Isobel ................................................49

Glidden, Sarah ..................................................50

Albom, Mitch ....................................................40

COLLEGE RULES!, 3rd Edition ..............................52

GO GREEN, LIVE RICH..........................................67

Alexander, Shaun ..............................................69

Combs, Patrick....................................................55

GOD GREW TIRED OF US......................................17

Ali, Nujood ........................................................16

Coplin, William D. ..............................................55

GOD OF SMALL THINGS, THE ..............................32

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT ..................32

COVERING ..........................................................51

Goleman, Daniel ................................................58

ALL SOULS..........................................................19

CRACKING THE HIDDEN JOB MARKET ..................55

GREEN VOLUNTEERS, 8th Ed. ..............................59

Amnesty International USA................................48

Dau, John Bul ....................................................17

Grisham, John ....................................................50

Anderson, Kristen Jane ......................................68

DEATH OF JOSSELINE, THE ..................................22

Grooms, Anthony ..............................................29

Angelou, Maya ..................................................16

DEBT FREE FOR LIFE............................................67

GUARDIANS, THE ................................................28

Asher, Donald ....................................................55

Demick, Barbara ................................................49

HALF A LIFE ........................................................14

Aslan, Reza ........................................................48

DO HARD THINGS................................................68

Hari, Daoud........................................................18

Aslan, Reza ........................................................48

DO IT ANYWAY ..................................................64

Harris, Alex and Brett Harris ..............................68

AUDACITY OF HOPE, THE ....................................21

DREAMS FROM MY FATHER ................................21

Heath, Chip and Dan Heath ................................54

Ausenda, Fabio ..................................................59

DREAMS OF JOY..................................................26

Hegland, Jean ....................................................30

Ausenda, Fabio ..................................................64

Dumas, Firoozeh ................................................17

Hill, Graham ......................................................59

AWAIT YOUR REPLY ............................................29

EARTH’S LAST WILDERNESS, THE ........................59

HOLLOWING OUT THE MIDDLE ............................48

Bach, David ........................................................67

Easterbrook, Gregg ............................................49

Holmes, Hannah ................................................50

BAKING CAKES IN KIGALI ....................................31

ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE ................................58

HOPE BENEATH OUR FEET ..................................58

BE DIFFERENT ....................................................12

ECOTOPIA ..........................................................28

HOPE IN THE UNSEEN, A......................................23

BEATRICE AND VIRGIL ........................................24 Begley, Ed, Jr. ....................................................59

ED BEGLEY, JR.’S GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE LIVING ..........................................................59

HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET ..................................................29

BEYOND FUNDAMENTALISM ..............................48

Edelman, Hope ..................................................18

BLACK HEARTS....................................................18

ENOUGH MOMENT, THE ......................................60

HOW TO UNDERSTAND ISRAEL IN 60 DAYS OR LESS ........................................................50

BLACK SWAN: Second Edition ............................65

ENRIQUE’S JOURNEY ..........................................10

HUNGER OF MEMORY ........................................22

BLIND DESCENT ..................................................46

Ensler, Eve ..........................................................18

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE..........................18

BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME..............................51

ETHICS................................................................65

I AM NUJOOD, AGE 10 AND DIVORCED ................16

BLUE NOTEBOOK, THE ........................................30

EVERY MAN DIES ALONE ....................................29

I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS..................16

Bolles, Richard N. ..............................................55

EXTRAORDINARY, ORDINARY PEOPLE..................22

IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS ................44

BOMBINGHAM ..................................................29

FACTORY GIRLS ..................................................49

INNOCENT MAN, THE ..........................................50

Bowe, John ........................................................48

FAHRENHEIT 451 ................................................28

INTO THE FOREST................................................30

Bradbury, Ray ....................................................28

Fallada, Hans......................................................29

INVISIBLE GORILLA, THE ....................................54

Brand, Millen ....................................................28

FAREWELL, MY SUBARU ....................................58

Johnson, Mary ..................................................19

Bronson, Po........................................................40

Feaver, Peter ......................................................55

JOKER ONE..........................................................16

Buffett, Peter......................................................34

FIGHT FOR YOUR MONEY ....................................67

JOURNAL FOR JORDAN, A....................................17

Caldwell, Gail ....................................................16

Fine, Doug..........................................................58

Keogh, Martin, ed. ............................................58

Callenbach, Ernest..............................................28

FIST STICK KNIFE GUN ..........................................2

Kerman, Piper ....................................................19

Campbell, Donovan............................................16

Ford, Jamie ........................................................29

Kidder, Tracy ....................................................4, 5

Canada, Geoffrey..................................................2

Francis, John, Ph.D. ..........................................56

KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, THE....................................23

Canedy, Dana ....................................................17

Frederick, Jim ....................................................18

LaNier, Carlotta Walls ..........................................6

CAREER COUNSELOR’S HANDBOOK, THE..............55

FREEDOM WRITERS DIARY ..................................36

LAST TOWN ON EARTH, THE ................................31

Carr, Patrick J. ....................................................48

Freedom Writers, The and Erin Gruwell ..............36

LAUGHING WITHOUT AN ACCENT........................17

Castillo, Ana ......................................................28

FREEDOM ..........................................................48

LAY THAT TRUMPET IN OUR HANDS ....................30

Chabris, Christopher and Daniel Simons ............54

Freeman, Ph.D., Philip Mitchell ..........................55

LECTURE NOTES..................................................55

Chang, Leslie T. ..................................................49

FUNNY IN FARSI..................................................17

Lee, Euna............................................................19

Chaon, Dan ........................................................29

Furtick, Steven ..................................................69

LET’S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME........................16

CHARACTER IS DESTINY ......................................40

Gates, Bill, Sr. ....................................................64

Levine, James A. ................................................30

www.CommonReads.com

autHoR/tItLe Index Stengel, Richard ................................................40

LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT ................................34

Parkin, Gaile ......................................................31

LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS ........................................38

Patel, Eboo ........................................................42

Strauss, Darin ....................................................14

LIFE YOU CAN SAVE, THE ....................................65

Patrick, Deval ....................................................21

STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS ..............................4

LIFE, IN SPITE OF ME ..........................................68

Pham, Quang ....................................................22

Strickland, Bill....................................................41

LOOK ME IN THE EYE ..........................................12

PLANETWALKER ................................................56

Strout, Elizabeth ................................................33

Lyons, Gabe........................................................69

Platt, David ........................................................69

SUN STAND STILL................................................69

MacDonald, Michael ..........................................19

PLENTY ..............................................................58

Suskind, Ron ......................................................23

MADE TO STICK ..................................................54

POSSIBILITY OF EVERYTHING, THE ......................18

SUZE ORMAN’S ACTION PLAN ............................66

MAJOR IN SUCCESS, 5th Ed. ..............................55

Prendergast, John ..............................................60

Suzuki, Shunryu ................................................41

MAJOR PETTIGREW’S LAST STAND......................32

QUIRK ................................................................50

Swan, Robert ....................................................59

MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE ......................41

RADICAL ............................................................69

SWITCH ..............................................................54

Mam, Somaly ....................................................20

RAGGED EDGE OF SILENCE ..................................56

Tabor, James M...................................................46

MANDELA’S WAY ................................................40

READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN ..............................20

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas ......................................65

Manning, Sean ..................................................20

READY, SET, GREEN ............................................59

TEACHING HOPE ................................................36

Marino, Gordon, ed ............................................65

REASON TO BELIEVE, A........................................21

THINGS I’VE BEEN SILENT ABOUT........................20

Martel, Yann ......................................................24

Regan, Margaret ................................................22

THINGS THAT NEED DOING, THE ..........................20

Martin, Courtney E. ..........................................64

Remarque, Erich Maria ......................................32

TIME IT SNOWED IN PUERTO RICO, THE ..............31

Mawer, Simon....................................................30

Rice, Condoleezza ..............................................22

Tisch, Jonathan ..................................................64

McCain, John......................................................40

ROAD OF LOST INNOCENCE, THE..........................20

TRANSLATOR, THE ..............................................18

McCarthy, Susan Carol........................................30

Robison, John Elder............................................12

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE ....................................40

McCoy, Sarah......................................................31

Rodriguez, Richard ............................................22

Tyson, Timothy B. ..............................................51

MIGHTY LONG WAY, A ..........................................6

Rogers, Elizabeth ..............................................59

UNQUENCHABLE THIRST, AN ..............................19

MONEY CLASS, THE ............................................66

Rosenberg, Scott ................................................50

Vonnegut, Kurt ..................................................33

Moon, Elizabeth ................................................31

Roy, Arundhati ..................................................32

Vujicic, Nick........................................................38

Moore, Wes ..........................................................8

Salih, Tayeb ........................................................32

WALK, THE..........................................................69

MOUNTAIN LION, THE ........................................33

Sancton, Tom ....................................................23

WATER BOOK, THE ..............................................59

MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS ......................5

SAY EVERYTHING................................................50

Welch, Diana and Liz Welch................................23

MRS. SOMEBODY SOMEBODY ............................33

SEARCH FOR FULFILLMENT, THE..........................41

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? 2011 ..........55

Mullen, Thomas ................................................31

SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH ..............32

Nafisi, Azar ........................................................20

See, Lisa ............................................................26

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? FOR TEENS, 2nd Ed. ......................................55

Nazario, Sonia ....................................................10

SENSE OF DUTY, A ..............................................22

NEXT CHRISTIANS, THE ......................................69

Settersten, Ph.D., Richard ..................................51

Nist-Olejnik, Ph.D., Sherrie and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, Ph.D. ..........................52

SHANGHAI GIRLS................................................26

NO GOD BUT GOD ..............................................48

SHOWING UP FOR LIFE........................................64

NOBODIES ..........................................................48

Simonson, Helen................................................32

SHIFT YOUR HABIT..............................................59

NOT QUITE ADULTS ............................................51

Singer, Peter ......................................................65

NOTHING TO ENVY ..............................................49

Skloot, Rebecca..................................................44

Obama, Barack ..................................................21

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE ....................................33

OLIVE KITTERIDGE ..............................................33

Smith, Alisa and J.B. MacKinnon ........................58

ONE-WEEK JOB PROJECT, THE ............................54

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? JOB-HUNTER’S WORKBOOK ..........................55 WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE? ..................40 Whitbourne, Susan Krauss ................................41 Winn, Tracy ........................................................33 WOMAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY, THE..............51 WORLD IS BIGGER NOW, THE ..............................19 WORLD VOLUNTEERS, 4th Edition ......................64 Yoshino, Kenji ....................................................51

Smith, Sharon J. ................................................62

YOUNG ACTIVIST’S GUIDE TO BUILDING A GREEN MOVEMENT AND CHANGING THE WORLD, THE ..........................................62

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK................................19

SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN ................26

ZEN MIND, BEGINNER’S MIND ............................41

Oren, Ram..........................................................21

SONG FOR MY FATHERS ......................................23

Orman, Suze ......................................................66

SONIC BOOM ......................................................49

OTHER WES MOORE, THE ......................................8

SPEED OF DARK, THE ..........................................31

OUTCASTS UNITED..............................................23

St. John, Warren ................................................23

OUTWARD ROOM, THE........................................28

Stafford, Jean ....................................................33

Pacheco, Elizabeth..............................................59

START HERE........................................................68

PARADISE BENEATH HER FEET ............................49

Steil, Jennifer ....................................................51

Author/Title Index

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