Common Reads: Freshman Year Reading

... Read How to Stand Up to a Dictator Summary

... Read If I Survive You Summary

... Read I Never Thought of It That Way Summary

... Read Interior Chinatown Summary

While many know the story of the sinking of the Titanic, fewer have heard the story of the Essex, a whaling ship that was sunk after being repeatedly rammed by an enormous whale during a whaling expedition in 1820. At one time, however, the story of the Essex was the most famous story of maritime tragedy in the United States, even inspiring certain aspects of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Nathaniel Philbrick’s account of the journey... Read In the Heart of the Sea Summary

I, Robot, a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, is a set of stories about the first robotic machines and the problems and pitfalls of living with and working alongside them. The book is the first in a series of several novels about robots; it is famous for its Three Laws of Robotics that govern machine behavior, and for its device, the positronic brain, which contains a robot’s conscious intelligence.Asimov (1920-1992) is one of the... Read I, Robot Summary

Part memoir, part exhortation for much-needed reform to the American criminal justice system, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy is a heartrending and inspirational call to arms written by the activist lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based organization responsible for freeing or reducing the sentences of scores of wrongfully convicted individuals. Stevenson’s memoir weaves together personal stories from his years as a lawyer with strong statements against racial and legal injustice, drawing a clear... Read Just Mercy Summary

... Read Laziness Does Not Exist Summary

... Read Little Princes Summary

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive is Stephanie Land’s first book. Land is a former professional house cleaner whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Her writing explores issues related to systemic poverty, the hardships and stigmas associated with social services, surviving in the gig economy, and the challenges of motherhood. Maid was originally inspired by a Vox article she wrote about... Read Maid Summary

... Read Make It Stick Summary

... Read March: Books 2 & 3 Summary

Maus by Art Spiegelman was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It originally ran in Spiegelman’s Raw magazine between 1980 and 1991 before receiving mainstream attention as two collected volumes, Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991. This guide is based on the 1996 complete edition. This historic memoir interlaces two narratives, one of Spiegelman’s Jewish father as he survives World War II Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, and... Read Maus Summary

One of the founding documents of Western philosophy, Plato’s Meno recounts a dialog on the nature of virtue between Socrates and his pupil Meno, a rising star among the leaders of ancient Greece. They discuss how virtue can be recognized, where it comes from, and whether it can be taught.Meno takes place in 402 BCE in Athens; Plato, Socrates’s most famous student, in 385 BCE wrote down his recollection of the conversation. It offers a... Read Meno Summary

... Read My Life in Full Summary

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a 2001 nonfiction book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. This book is considered a classic of investigative journalism and was ranked #13 in The Guardian’s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. Ehrenreich takes a series of low-paying, entry-level jobs in three cities (Key West, Florida; Portland, Maine; Minneapolis, Minnesota) to answer the question of whether one can survive on these wages and... Read Nickel and Dimed Summary

... Read Notes from a Young Black Chef Summary

One Foot in Eden is a 2002 crime novel by Ron Rash. Rash employs a blend of Southern Gothic and detective fiction to create suspense and explore the psychological inner conflict of the characters. The novel follows five different narrators as the people of Jocassee, South Carolina, discover the murder of Holland Winchester. As the investigation continues, the characters must come to terms with the displacement of their community while Carolina Power evicts the inhabitants... Read One Foot in Eden Summary

One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture is a 2019 book on how the American food production system must move beyond conventional and sustainable farming to embrace regenerative farming strategies tailored to individual environments. Anderson, who grew up on a conventional ranch outside of Bison, South Dakota, has firsthand knowledge of US conventional farming strategies. As a young journalist for the Tri-State Neighbor newspaper, she started off wanting... Read One Size Fits None Summary

... Read On Juneteenth Summary