2015 2016 - HarperCollinsfiles.harpercollins.com › HarperAcademic › FirstYearStudent1516.pdfthe wild, on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail leading from Mexico to Canada. In this

2015 2016

Dear First-Year Administrator,We’ve combed through all of HarperCollins’s titles, new and classic, to feature our best books for first-year student reading programs in one catalog.

We hope that you’ll also think of us as a resource. Need sample copies? You can reach us at [email protected] or 212.207.7546. We’re happy to suggest titles, alert our HarperCollins Speakers Bureau about your request for an author visit, and help coordinate your book order.

Sincerely,

Diane BurrowesLouisa HagerMichael Fynan

HarperFirstYear.hc.com

mailto:academic%40harpercollins.com?subject=First%20Year%20Student%20Catalog

http://HarperFirstYear.hc.com

TAB

LE OF C

ON

TENTS

Table of Contents

New and Featured.....................................................................................

Big Ideas..................................................................................................

American Society......................................................................................

American Memoir.....................................................................................

Fiction.....................................................................................................

Global Issues & Memoir...........................................................................

Religion...................................................................................................

Orientation............................................................................................

Index.................................................................................................

Ordering Information................................................................................

4

9

17

26

41

33

46

48

50

52

3

F IRS T-YEAR S TUDENT: BOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPT ION

KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available

NEW

& FE

ATU

RED

4

Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner

Find Me Unafraid tells the uncommon love story between two uncommon people whose collaboration sparked a successful movement to transform the lives of vulnerable girls and the urban poor. Jessica Posner met Kennedy Odede on her junior year abroad, when she arrived in Nairobi to work with Shining Hope for Communities, the youth empowerment group he had founded in Kibera, the notorious slum where he was raised. Though it was unheard of for a white person, Jessica decided to live in Kibera with Kennedy, and they fell in love. They went on to found Kibera’s first tuition-free school for girls—a large, bright blue building, which stands as a bastion of hope in what once felt like a hopeless place. This is their story, and they are just getting started.

“Shining Hope for Communities is one of the most hopeful places I have ever visited.” —Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times

Ecco: 352 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-229285-8 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available in September 2016: 978-0-06-229286-5 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

The Shed That Fed a Million Children: The Extraordinary Story of Mary’s Meals Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow

In The Shed That Fed a Million Children, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow—a former salmon-farmer—retells how a series of miraculous circumstances and an overwhelming display of love from those around him led to the creation of Mary’s Meals, a global charity that could hold the key to eradicating child hunger in the world’s poorest countries. This humble, heart-warming yet powerful story has never been more relevant in our privileged society. It will open your students’ eyes to the extraordinary impact that one person can make.

“Magnus takes us on an extraordinary personal adventure into some of the most dangerous and unforgiving parts of the world, all for a single, simple mission: every child deserves to eat.” —Conor Grennan, bestselling author of Little Princes

William Collins: 320 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-813270-5 • hc • $21.99 ($26.99/CAN) Paperback available in January 2016: 978-0-00-815224-6 • pb • $14.99 (N/C)

NEW

& FE

ATU

RED


5KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available

How to Be Alive: No Impact Man’s Guide to a High Impact Life Colin Beavan

Deeply concerned about the environment, Colin Beavan went on a yearlong experiment to lead a zero net-impact existence in the middle of New York City. His “lifestyle redesign” project—chronicled in a bestselling book (No Impact Man), a documentary, and an ongoing lecture series—has provoked and inspired tens of thousands of people.

But most students cannot make the extreme changes that Colin explored. In this thoughtful, enlightening guide, Colin offers insight to help them negotiate the maze of dilemmas and questions that confront us all when trying to do right by themselves and the planet, suggesting small lifestyle adjustments that offer both security and meaning in a world plagued by ecological disaster, failing economies, war, and

social injustice. In the process, he helps students embark on an achievable quest for a “good life”—both better for themselves and the world.

Dey Street: 224 pp. January 2016 • 978-0-06-223670-8 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in October 2016: 978-0-06-223671-5 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

One More Step: My Story of Living with Cerebral Palsy, Climbing Kilimanjaro, and Surviving the Hardest Race on Earth Bonner Paddock

Bonner Paddock summited 19,341 foot-high Mount Kili-manjaro, the world’s tallest freestanding mountain. Four years later, he earned the elite triathlete title, Kona Ironman. Thousands have done each individually. He is the first with cerebral palsy to do both.

An athlete, adventurer, and philanthropist, Bonner is today no longer defined by his limits, but by the moments that pushed him past them. Infused with his irresistible charis-ma, courage, and heart, One More Step shows students how to conquer challenges and embrace every moment life has to offer.

“One More Step is a riveting story of overcoming the chal-lenge of living with cerebral palsy and conquering the impossible. Bonner Paddock is an inspiration to everyone.” —Nolan Ryan, MLB Hall of Fame pitcher

HarperOne: 288 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-229558-3 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available in March 2016: 978-0-06-229560-6 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN)

NEW

& FE

ATU

RED


6 KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available

Bad Feminist: Essays Roxane Gay

Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

Roxane Gay—one of the most-watched and original young cultural observers of her generation—takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

“Gay playfully crosses the borders between pop culture consumer and critic, between serious academic and lighthearted sister-girl, between despair and optimism, between good and bad. . . . How can you help but love her?” —Melissa Harris-Perry, Wake Forest Professor and MSNBC Host

Freshman Common Read: University of California-Los Angeles, Virginia Wesleyan College

Harper Perennial: 336 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-228271-2 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood Richard Blanco

This powerful and inspiring memoir from Richard Blanco, the first Latino and openly gay inaugural poet, explores his coming of age as the child of Cuban immigrants, and his at- tempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities. Blanco’s poignant, often hilarious memoir brilliantly illuminates the experience of “becoming” in America—a singular yet universal story that all your students will relate to in some way.

“A warm, emotionally intimate memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews

Freshman Common Read: Florida International University, Quinsigamond Community College

Ecco: 272 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-231377-5 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

NEW

& FE

ATU

RED


7KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available

Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan to assist on raids and gather crucial information from Afghani women. In Ashley’s War, reporter Gayle Tzemach Lemmon tells the tale of one of these secret units and the remarkable hero at its heart: Ashley White, a beloved and effective soldier who gave her life serving her country in a role for which she will never officially receive credit. Ashley’s War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way students think about war and the meaning of service.

“An unforgettable story of female soldiers breaking the brass ceiling. The women who answered America’s call to serve

show that our military is stronger when it engages both halves of the population. This book will inspire you and remind you of the power that comes with defying limits.” —Sheryl Sandberg

Harper: 320 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-2233381-0 • hc • $26.99 ($33.50/CAN) Paperback available in April 2016: 978-0-06-233382-7 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

Girl in the Woods: A Memoir Aspen Matis

On her second night of college, Aspen Matis was raped by a fellow student. Dealing with a problem that has sadly become all too common on college campuses around the country, she stumbled through her freshman year. At its end, she made a bold decision: she would seek healing in the freedom of the wild, on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail leading from Mexico to Canada. In this grippingly honest and inspiring memoir, Aspen recounts her journey from shattered girl to self-reliant woman, and how she found hope and healing in nature.

“Beautiful and so wildly engaging.” —Lena Dunham

William Morrow: 384 pp. September 2015 • 978-0-06-229106-6 • hc • $24.99 ($31.00/CAN) Paperback available in June 2016: 978-0-06-229107-3 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

Go Set a Watchman: A Novel Harper Lee

Go Set a Watchman is Harper Lee’s earliest known novel. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014, and is now published for the first time.

“A breathtaking read that will have the reader actively engaged and arguing with every character.” —Library Journal

“[T]he moral fervor that shines forth in Go Set a Watchman—the same deep yearning for social justice that makes To Kill a Mockingbird so much more than just a an exercise in nostalgia for sleepy small towns and a bygone era—is striking and inspiring. We all want to be better than we are. Books such as this one give us a nudge down that long and difficult road.” —Chicago Tribune

Harper: 288 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-240985-0 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available in July 2017: 978-0-06-240986-7 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age Matt Richtel

Digging deeper into his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on the issue of distracted driving, Matt Richtel examines the impact of technology on our lives through the lens of Reggie Shaw, a college student, who, while texting and driving, killed two rocket scientists in 2006. Students will follow Reggie through the tragedy of the crash, the police investigation, his prosecution, and the role he plays today as an important advocate against distracted driving. Along the way, Richtel gives students cutting-edge scientific findings about human attention and technology that will help them envision how to manage this crisis both individually and on a societal level.

“Matt Richtel’s riveting book is narrative nonfiction at its finest. A well-written true life account of tragedy, redemption

and the public policy challenges of keeping pace with the march of technology. This book should be placed in every school and legislative chamber in the country.” —Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utah

Freshman Common Read: Boise State University, University of Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina University

William Morrow: 416 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-228407-5 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.ADeadlyWandering.com


NEW

& FE

ATU

RED


8

http://www.ADeadlyWandering.com



Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Here’s a first-year book that encourages critical thinking and sparks discussion. Freakonomics addresses current social questions that students will enjoy arguing about both in the classroom and over coffee in the student union:

• Which is more dangerous—a gun or a swimming pool?• Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers?• What makes a perfect parent?

These may not sound like typical questions an economist asks, but Levitt is not your typical economist. He studies the mysteries of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing—and his conclusions regularly turn conventional wisdom on its head, helping students develop a critical eye to many things that are presented as fact.

“Genius . . . has you gasping in amazement.” —The Wall Street Journal

Freshman Common Read: Appalachian State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Louisville

William Morrow Paperbacks: 352 pp. 2009 • 978-0-06-073133-5 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

Also availableSuperFreakonomics:Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life InsuranceWilliam Morrow Paperbacks: 320 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-088958-6 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

Think Like a Freak:The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your BrainWilliam Morrow Paperbacks: 304 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-221834-6 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

When To Rob a Bank:…And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended RantsWilliam Morrow: 400 pp.2015 • 978-0-06-238532-1 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in May 2016: 2016 • 978-0-06-238580-2 • pb • $15.99 ($19.00/CAN)

BIG

IDEA

S

9

http://www.HarperAcademic.com




BIG

IDEA

S


10

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout Lauren Redniss

Lauren Redniss has created a fascinating and deeply moving visual biography that walks students through the story of Marie Curie’s life, which was marked by both extraordinary scientific discovery and dramatic personal trauma. From her romantic partnership with Pierre, through his tragic decline from radium poisoning and death in a traffic accident, to the scandalous affair with another fellow scientist that almost jeopardized her second Nobel Prize, it also casts an eye forward to survey the changes wrought by Curie’s discovery of radioactivity—illuminating the path from the Curie laboratory past the bright red mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert through Three Mile Island and the advance in radiation therapy and nuclear power today.

“Absolutely dazzling. Lauren Redniss has created a book that is both vibrant history and a work of art. Like radium itself, Radioactive glows with energy*.” —Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Freshman Common Read: Stanford University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Madison-Wisconsin

Dey Street: 208 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-241616-2 • pb • $21.99 ($26.99/CAN) *The cover of the book really does glow in the dark!An audio which contains the full text as well as descriptions of the art is available for visually disabled students.

New in Paperback!

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error Kathryn Schulz

Of all the things people are wrong about, our condemnation of error should top the list. It is our meta-mistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage. Wrongness is a vital part of how students learn and change. Thanks to error, students can revise their understanding of themselves and amend their ideas.

When asked by the New York Times what book she wished all Harvard freshmen would read, Drew Gilpin Faust, President

of Harvard replied, “Kathryn Schulz’s Being Wrong advocates doubt as a skill and praises error as the foundation of wisdom. Her book would reinforce my encouragement of Harvard’s accomplished and successful freshmen to embrace risk and even failure.”

Freshman Common Read: University of Texas-Pan American, Wellesley College, Washington State College

Ecco: 416 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-117605-0 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)


BIG

IDEA

SF IRS T-YEAR S TUDENT: BOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPT ION

11

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals Hal Herzog

We admire this book because Professor Herzog is thoughtful, rational, and often funny as he shows students how illogical they are in their relationships with animals. It’s not a polemic. It’s a book that fosters debate and conversation by asking deceptively simple questions:

• Does living with a pet really make people happier and healthier? • What can we learn from biomedical research with mice? • Who enjoys a better quality of life—the chicken on a dinner plate or a rooster who dies in a Saturday night cockfight? • Why is it wrong to eat the family dog?

It’s already been adopted in a variety of courses from anthropology and composition to ethics.

“Wildly readable, funny, scientifically sound, and with surprising moments of deep, chal-lenging thoughts.” —Robert M. Sapolsky, Stanford University

Freshman Common Read: Eastern Kentucky University

Harper Perennial: 368 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-173085-6 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less Barry Schwartz

Whether your students are buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, registering for courses, or choosing a doctor, their everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which they are presented.

Students assume that more choices—the hallmark of individual freedom—mean better options and greater satisfaction. But Barry Schwartz, a Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, warns them to beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make them question the decisions they make before they even make

them, it can set them up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make them blame themselves for any and all failures.

“A revolutionary and beautifully reasoned book about the promiscuous amount of choice that leaves the consumer helpless. A must-read.” —Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness




BIG

IDEA

S


12

Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age William Powers

Today’s students have grown up with and will continue to encounter unprecedented change as a result of the digital age. Unlike any previous generation they will be called upon to construct values and ethics in a world in which rapid technological change is the norm. Smart and soulful, Hamlet’s BlackBerry asks students to evaluate what it means to be connected in a practical and philosophical sense and teaches them to evaluate the importance of this in their lives.

“Powers helps us understand what being ‘connected’ discon-nects us from, and offers wise advice about what we can do about it. This is a thoughtful, elegant, and moving book.” —Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

Freshman Common Read: Assumption College, Bucknell University, Eastern Kentucky University


Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection Jacob Silverman

Nobody reads the terms of service, do they? Instead of mindlessly checking the “I agree” box, Jacob Silverman urges your students to take control of their digital lives. Integrating politics, sociology, national security, and pop culture into his analysis, Silverman reveals how social media platforms—Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others—exist to collect personal data that can be turned into advertising revenue—and he explores the implications of the collapsed barriers between our private and public lives.

Silverman—a three-time Jeopardy! champion—captures the new era of social media in a way no one yet has, honing in on, and empowering your students to free themselves from the inner conflict so many of us feel as we decide what to share, what to “like,” and why.

“A deep and disquieting plunge into digital culture. . . . Relentlessly skeptical, Silverman captures beautifully the surreal aspects of the social media experience. . . . Intelligent, provocative and illuminating.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Harper: 448 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-228246-0 • hc • $26.99 ($33.50/CAN) Paperback available in March 2016: 978-0-06-228248-4 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)


BIG

IDEA


13

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? The Net’s Impact on Our Minds and Future Edited by John Brockman

How is the Internet changing the way we think? The Web impacts everything from the way we communicate and read, watch TV, and buy everything, to the way we love, make friends, find information, and organize politically. Thankfully, John Brockman’s cast of geniuses is here to put it all in perspective: Steven Pinker (author of The Language Instinct) on how the mind adapts to new technologies • Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion) on the massive profusion of knowledge available on the Internet • Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation) on wired brains • Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan) on the degradation of precise knowledge • Chris Anderson (editor of Wired magazine; author of The

Long Tail) compares the Internet to the discovery of fire • Lisa Randall (author of Warped Passages) on the challenge of too much (unreliable) information • Brian Eno (music producer) on the battle between the “authentic” and the reproducible . . . and many others.

Harper Perennial: 448 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-202044-4 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN) Also Available: What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Today’s Leading Minds Rethink EverythingWhat Is Your Dangerous Idea? Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable

This Will Make You Smarter:New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking Edited by John Brockman

Edge.org presents brilliant, accessible, cutting-edge ideas to improve our decision-making skills and our cognitive toolkits, with contributions by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Richard Daw-kins, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more. Featuring a foreword by New York Times columnist David Brooks and edited by John Brockman, This Will Make You Smarter presents some of the best wisdom from today’s leading thinkers—to make better thinkers out of the leaders of tomorrow.

It is currently being used in Montana State University’s core “Knowledge and Community” course.

“A winning combination of good writers, good science and serious broader concerns.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)



BIG

IDEA

S


14

inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity Tina Seelig

What does it mean to be creative, to use your imagination to its fullest potential, and how can one harness their personal creative muse in order to function successfully in the everyday world? The answers to these questions have been the professional mission of award-winning Stanford University educator Tina Seelig, who has taught creativity to the best and brightest students and to business leaders around the world. inGenius offers a revolutionary new model to inspire creativity—the Innovation Engine—which explains how creativity is generated on the inside and how it is influenced by the outside world. With inGenius, Seelig expertly decodes creativity, revealing an approach that your students can use to enhance their own creative genius.

“Tina Seelig has written a provocative field guide to twenty-first century creativity, with her energy and enthusiasm bursting through on every page. We all could use a little extra spark of creativity, and this book helps show the way.” —Tom Kelley, general manager of IDEO and author of The Art of Innovation

HarperOne: 224 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-202071-0 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World Tina Seelig

After years immersed in the world of entrepreneurship education, best-selling author and Stanford professor Tina Seelig realized that there is a real need for a roadmap—which she calls the Invention Cycle—that clearly defines the relationships between imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This framework reveals how to harness the required attitudes and actions to take a compelling idea and transform it into something extraordinary. The book includes research from across disciplines, cases studies from around the world, and classroom exercises and projects, leading to powerful strategies for transforming ideas into actions.

“Tina is well-known as one of the best, most inspiring teach-ers at Stanford. Many of the current generation leaders in Sili-

con Valley were once her students. With Insight Out, Tina uses her characteristic analytic approach to unpack creativity and innovation, helping to dispel the myth that these are magical powers available to only a lucky few.” —Justin Rosenstein, Co-founder, Asana

HarperOne: 256 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-230127-7 • hc • $26.99 ($33.50/CAN)


BIG

IDEA


15

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World Tina Seelig

Tina Seelig told us that she wrote inGenius to show students how to generate new and innovative ideas and products, and she wrote What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 to help bring those ideas to life in the world. Here, she provides tangible skills and insights—from having a healthy disregard for the impossible, how to recover from failure, and how many problems are opportunities in disguise—that will last a lifetime.

“Tina Seelig is one of the most creative and inspiring teachers at Stanford. Her book ought to be required reading. I wish I had read it when I was 20 . . . and again at 50.” —Professor Robert Sutton, Stanford University

HarperOne: 208 pp. 2009 • 978-0-06-173519-6 • hc • $22.99 ($28.50/CAN)

Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No, But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration—Lessons from the Second City Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton

For more than 50 years, The Second City has been the world’s premier comedy club/theater and school of improvisation, but it’s also the place leading-edge companies turn to develop innovators and adaptable leaders.

This book will help your students master skills that will benefit them at school and in the future: from the ability to co-create in ensembles and embrace failure, to the development of a “yes, and” approach to brainstorming and flexible leadership qualities.

“Yes, And takes you behind the curtain of Second City to reveal deep insights and practical tips about how to lead a creative life.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive

Harper Business: 256 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-224854-1 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN)


BIG

IDEA

S


16

You Are Not Special:. . . And Other Encouragements David McCullough, Jr.

In June 2012, English teacher, father, and son of the historian David McCullough gave a commencement speech called “You Are Not Special.” The video of his speech—which he did not know was being shot—went viral, and as of today, it has over 2 million views. The speech arose from a growing concern—based on twenty years of observation in his classroom, around school, across the culture, and in his own household of four children—that high school students who have been indulged, micro-managed and given false praise by the adults in their lives are suffering an ever-more inflated sense of themselves. As a result their notions of the world and how they envision their futures are off-kilter and need to be addressed.

You can watch David give the speech at http://youtu.be/_lfxYhtf8o4.

“A clear-eyed but affectimate polemic urging kids to stop trying to be perfect and to take chances, even at the risk of failing.” —Clayton Christensen, author of How Will You Measure Your Life?

Ecco: 352 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-239334-0 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN)

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) Chade-Meng Tan Forewords by Jon Kabat-Zinn & Daniel Goleman

Chade-Meng Tan originally developed the Search Inside Yourself program while working as an engineer at Google. A longtime practitioner of mindfulness, he knew there was a way to apply that practice to improving the personal and professional lives of his coworkers, and his program quickly took off because it did just that, enhancing the productivity, creativity, and day-to-day happiness of everyone who signed up. The tools Chade-Meng Tan reveals will not only foster deeper self-awareness but also enable students to be more successful, more productive, and more peaceful in all areas of life.

“Mr. Tan promises that this technique will ‘increase pro-ductivity, creativity and happiness’. . . . The concept involves

mastering one’s feelings and developing greater compassion, empathy and emotional intelligence. Mr. Tan believes a world of SIY users will be a peaceful one, and he sees the book as a step towards achieving this.” —The Economist


http://youtu.be/_lfxYhtf8o4


KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available 17 17

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Gilbert King

• Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

Devil in the Grove paints a rare, unparalleled portrait of Thurgood Marshall, arguably the greatest American lawyer of the 20th century. Just as he was about to bring the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education to the Supreme Court, Marshall risked his life to save a young black man slated for the electric chair—exonerating him, against all odds, from dying for a crime he did not commit.

“[An] excellent book on a little known and horrifying inci-dent in which four young black men were rounded up and accused of raping a white woman, readers cannot help but be

awed by the bravery of those who took a stand in the late 1940s and early 1950s.” —San Francisco Chronicle


Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga Pamela Newkirk

Award-winning journalist Pamela Newkirk reveals a little-known and shameful episode in early 20th-century American history: an African man was used as a human zoo exhibit—a shocking story of racial prejudice, science, and tragedy in the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Medical Apartheid. Using this event as a lens, the author charts the evolution of science and race relations in America during the early 20th century—a racially fraught era for African-Americans who continued to be subjected to political disenfranchisement and social scorn long after the end of the Civil War. Newkirk’s masterful work of social history raises difficult questions about racial prejudice and discrimination that continue to haunt us today.

“Here is a gripping and painstaking narrative that breaks new ground. Now, after a century, Benga has finally been heard.” —New York Times Book Review

Amistad: 336 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-220100-3 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in June 2017: 978-0-06-220102-7 • pb • $13.99 ($17.50/CAN)



17

AM

ERIC

AN

SOC

IETY



AM

ERIC

AN

SOC

IETY

18

Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle Kristen Green

Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism and a sweeping family narrative, this provocative true story reveals a little-known chapter of American history: the period after the Brown v. Board of Education decision when one Virginia school system refused to integrate and closed its public schools. The community’s white leaders quickly established the private Prince Edward Academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use for their all-white classrooms, while black parents scrambled to find alternative education for their children for five years.

Kristen Green grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, without knowledge of its shameful past. As she peels back the layers of this haunting period, her own

family’s role—no less complex and painful—comes to light, producing a dramatic chronicle that explores our troubled racial past and its reverberations today, and a timeless story about compassion, forgiveness, and the meaning of home.

“Kristen Green was born to write this book. . . . [She] deftly interweaves the personal and the historical into a compelling narrative that leaves no stone unturned. . . . [N]ot only fascinating but cinematic. . . . [A]n award-worthy book.” —Booklist (Top Pick)

Harper: 336 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-226867-9 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in June 2016: 978-0-06-226868-6 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

How to Be Black Baratunde Thurston

For those who want to add a dose of humor as well as auto-biography to their class discussions about race in America, The Onion’s Baratunde Thurston shares his 30+ years of exper-tise in being black with helpful essays such as “How to Be the Black Friend,” and “How to Speak for All Black People.” How to Be Black will connect with black students who might share the same experience of being one of the only black people at work, in a group of friends or in a class—and it will jumpstart class discussions on the portrayal of minorities in media and the prevalence of discrimination.

“Part autobiography, part stand-up routine, part contempo-rary political analysis, and astute all over, How to Be Black might do more to expose and explore the shifting dynamics of

race in Amerca than all the Pew data of the past decade. . . . Thurston has given us a hys-terical, irreverent exploration of one of American’s most painful and enduring issues.” —Melissa Harris-Perry, contributing analyst for MSNBC and columnist for The Nation

Harper Paperbacks: 272 pp. 2012 • 978-0-06-200322-5 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)


F IRS T-YEAR S TUDENT: BOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPT IONA

MER

ICA

N SO

CIETY

19

High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society Dr. Carl Hart

As a youth, Carl Hart didn’t see the value of school, studying just enough to stay on the basketball team. At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today, he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist—Columbia University’s first tenured African-American professor in the sciences—whose land-mark, controversial research is redefining our understanding of addiction. In this eye-opening memoir, he recalls his journey of self-discovery, how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies. Interweaving past and present, Hart examines the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs and explain why current policies are failing.

“An eye-opening, absorbing, complex story of scientific achievement in the face of over-whelming odds.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“His account of the ways in which scientific evidence has been ignored in the war on drugs is as alarming as it is fascinating.” —Boston Globe


Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol Ann Dowsett Johnston

Award-winning journalist Ann Dowsett Johnston combines in-depth research with case studies to deliver a groundbreaking examination of a shocking yet little recognized epidemic threatening society today: the precipitous rise in risky drinking among women and girls.

“In this comprehensively researched and insightful book, Ann Dowsett Johnston . . . explores disturbing trends in contemporary women’s relationship to alcohol. A crucially important book for anyone interested in women’s health and addiction issues.” —Susan Juby, author of Nice Recovery

Have your students take our “10 Questions About Women and Alcohol Quiz” here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JXNF658

HarperWave: 320 pp. 2013 • 978-0-06-224180-1 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JXNF658



AM

ERIC

AN

SOC

IETY

20

I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet Leora Tanenbaum

College-aged women are encouraged to express themselves sexually. Yet when they do, they are derided as “sluts.” They are caught in a double bind of mixed sexual messages in a dangerous time when rumors and innuendo circulate faster than ever before, elevating slut-shaming to new levels and permeating campus culture. Now, the author of the groundbreaking book Slut! revisits her influential work, and shares new research—including interviews with a wide range of teenage girls and young women from a variety of backgrounds as well as parents, educators, and academics. Analyzing American digital culture itself and the harmful coping mechanisms it breeds, Tanenbaum suggests practical steps on the road to eradicating slut-shaming for good.

“What are girls to do when the same culture that encourages them to express their sexu-ality calls them sluts for doing just that? It’s a big, important question, and Tanenbaum is up to the task of exploring it.” —Book Riot


Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men Michael Kimmel

Sociologist Michael Kimmel tackles the world of late adolescent boys and young men: the “guys” of America, aged 16 to 26. Although these young men may appear to be growing up too fast, they are in fact becoming adults quite slowly. From the mundane—video games, movies and television, sports, and music—to the extreme—violent fraternity initiations, sexual predation, and school shootings—Kimmel reveals the culture that every boy must navigate on his way to adulthood, whether he is a participant or a bystander. Kimmel asserts that what happens to boys in this period often determines the type of men they will be for the rest of their lives.

“Kimmel is our seasoned guide into a world that, unless we are guys, we barely know exists. As he walks with us through

dark territories, he points out the significant and reflects on its meaning. Just as Reviving Ophelia introduced readers to the culture of teenage girls, Guyland takes us to the land of young men.” —Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving Ophelia

Freshman Common Read: Winona State University




MER

ICA

N SO

CIETY

21

Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America Diane Roberts

Florida State’s football team is always in the headlines, pro-ducing Heisman Trophy candidates, winning championships, and, at the same time, dealing with federal investigations into corruption and rape. And, like too many collegiate sports programs, no matter how the team transgresses off the field, if they excel on the field, all is forgiven. Writer, professor and conflicted Seminole fan Diane Roberts looks at the problems plaguing her campus in Tallahassee, examining them within the context of college football itself and its significance in American life as she explores how the game shapes our culture on campus and off.

Harper: 256 pp. October 2015 • 978-0-06-234262-1 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in October 2016: 978-0-06-234263-8 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

A Home on the Field: How One Championship Soccer Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America Paul Cuadros

This is the triumphant true story of a team of Latino high school students and their coach who fought against prejudice— and went on to win the North Carolina state championship.

“Cuadros, a reporter, went to Siler City, North Carolina, to investigate the changes wrought by Latinos arriving to work in a small-town poultry-processing plants. He became part of the story when he lobbied Jordan-Matthews High School to create a team for its soccer-loving Latino youth. Three sea-sons later, he had coached the Jets to a state championship. The engaging tale of the team’s climb to the top also provides a lens through which to view the challenge of assimilation.” —Booklist

“The championship helped unify the community because, for once, Hispanics could not be seen only as outsiders.” —New York Times

Freshman Common Read: Appalachian State University, UNC Chapel Hill—among others

Dey Street: 320 pp. 2007 • 978-0-06-112028-2 • pb • $13.99 ($17.99/CAN)



AM

ERIC

AN

SOC

IETY

22

All American: Two Young Men, the 2001 Army/Navy Game and the War They Fought in Iraq Steve Eubanks

In December 2001, while the fires from the World Trade Center were still burning, West Point cadet Chad Jenkins and midshipman Brian Stann squared off in what would go on to be the most-watched college football game of the decade. Stann, a Navy linebacker, first became wordlessly acquainted with the Army quarterback Jenkins with a perfectly played tackle. Though they would not meet again for another decade, both went to war, both led men, and both saw and did things that they never imagined possible. All American traces the heroic lives of these two men, from that fateful collegiate tackle in 2001 to their respective tours as first-class officers in the longest war in American history.

“Steve Eubanks tells a masterful story about both, along with a story of two extraordinary people, from two extraordinary institutions, moving through extraordinary times.” —David Lipsky, author of Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point

Freshman Common Read: Louisiana Tech

William Morrow Paperbacks: 320 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-220281-9 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Sean Parnell with John R. Bruning

At twenty-four years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon—a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws—and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan’s eastern frontier. What followed was sixteen months of close combat, over the course of which the platoon became Parnell’s family. But the cost of battle was high for these men: Over 80 percent were wounded in action, putting their casualty rate among the highest since Gettysburg, and not all of them made it home.

“A detailed and utterly gripping account of what our soldiers endure on the front lines of America’s war in Afghanistan. . . .

Here, in these pages, are the on-the-ground realities of a war we so rarely witness on news broadcasts.” —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried




MER

ICA

N SO

CIETY

23

The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won’t Tell You About What They’ve Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War Kevin Sites

During his years as a solo-journalist, travelling to the world’s most dangerous places to cover global war and disasters, Kevin Sites asked the toughest questions of the soldiers he met: What is it like to kill? What can you never forget? How can you tell what’s right? But he also asked these questions of himself, and tells the war stories that haunt him, including his own complicity in a murder.

The Things They Cannot Say is a deep exploration of the lives and minds of soldiers during war, and the balance these soldiers seek to find afterwards.

“There are, of course, no easy answers, but Sites highlights the importance of treatment for post-traumatic stress disor-

der and sharing stories. Most importantly, [Sites] forces readers, those average civilians, to look at what war does to people and think about whether it’s always worth it.” —San Francisco Chronicle


Code Name: Johnny Walker The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight With the U.S. Navy SEALs “Johnny Walker” with Jim DeFelice

During the American invasion of Iraq, U.S. Navy SEALs relied heavily on interpreters to help them navigate an unknown landscape and language—civilians who risked their lives and the lives of their families in the process. One interpreter, know to those he helped as “Johnny Walker,” was instrumental in unmasking countless terrorists and helping to foil an untold number of plots against fellow Iraqis as well as Americans. His courage and insider knowledge of key SEAL operations will give students an unparalleled glimpse into the crucial intelligence civilian interpreters provide for soldiers on the ground.

“Johnny is responsible for saving many American lives, es-pecially SEALs. He has an amazing story that I feel needs to be told, and would touch the hearts of all Americans. I cannot express how many lives have been touched by Johnny, and how many of us owe him our lives.” —Chris Kyle, former U.S. Navy SEAL and author of American Sniper

William Morrow: 304 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-226756-6 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)




AM

ERIC

AN

SOC

IETY

24

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream Adam Shepard

After graduating from college, Adam Shepard felt disillu-sioned by the apathy around him and set out to prove that it was possible to make something out of nothing and achieve the American Dream. With a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 in cash, and restricted from using his contacts or college education, he headed out for Charleston, South Carolina, a randomly selected city with one objective: to work his way out of homelessness and to have, after one year, $2,500 in savings, a working automobile, and a furnished apartment.

Scratch Beginnings is the earnest and passionate account of Shepard’s struggle to overcome the pressures placed on the homeless. His journey is sure to inspire students and will

remind them that America is still one of the most hopeful countries in the world.

Freshman Common Read: Methodist University, North Carolina Central University, Lewis University (Illinois), St. Andrews Presbyterian College, and Voorhees College—among others


Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles Les Standiford

The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created: William Mul-holland’s Los Angeles aqueduct, which allowed a small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before—considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century—Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger-than-life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future.

“If you want to learn why L.A. looks and feels like it does, read Les Standiford’s magnificent account in which myths are debunked, pseudo-heroes are exposed and hydraulic engi-

neering is made more exciting than any war. Forget Chinatown. This is the straight story.” —Tom Zoellner, author of Train: Riding the Rails that Created the Modern World

Ecco: 336 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-225142-8 • hc • $28.99 ($35.99/CAN) Paperback available in February 2016: 978-0-06-225145-9 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN)



MER

ICA

N SO

CIETY

25

The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food Ted Genoways

On the production line in American packinghouses, there is one cardinal rule: the chain never slows. In fact, every year, for decades, the chain conveyors that set the pace of slaughter have moved faster and faster to keep up with the growing American appetite for processed meat.

Acclaimed journalist Ted Genoways uses the story of Hormel Foods and soaring recession-era demand for its most famous product, Spam, as a lens through which to view the acceleration of the meatpacking industry, the expansion of agribusiness, and the effects of immigrant labor on middle America. The quest for cheap meat has produced alarming new trends: sick or permanently disabled workers, abused animals, water and soil pollution, and mounting conflict between small towns

and immigrant workers. This is American industry pushed to its breaking point. A work of brilliant, immersive, empathetic reporting, The Chain is a mesmerizing story and an urgent warning about the hidden cost of the food we eat.


Storm of the Century: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900

Al RokerIn this gripping narrative history, the beloved NBC weather personality vividly brings to life the Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in American history.

In less than twenty-four hours, one storm destroyed a major American metropolis—and awakened a nation to the terrifying power of nature. Exploring the impact of the disaster on a rising nation’s confidence—the pain and trauma of the loss and the determination of the response—Al Roker illuminates both the energy and the limitations of the American Century, and of nature itself.

“[A] compelling work. . . . Focusing on the human experience of the storm, Roker follows survivors before, during, and after the hurricane in order to elucidate what people on Galveston Island encountered as the storm raged through the city.” —Library Journal

William Morrow: 320 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-236465-4 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available in May 2016: 978-0-06-236466-1 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)



The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun Gretchen Rubin

In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

“This is the rare book that will make you both smile and think—often on the same page.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind

Freshman Common Read: Marian University


10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story Dan Harris

After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. Finally, Harris stumbled upon something that helped him tame the voice in his head: meditation.

Harris’s tales of the CEOs, scientists, and even marines who are now using meditation for increased calm, focus, and happiness may strike a chord with your first-year students, who are confronting the unique stressors that come with being on their own at college.

“An enormously smart, clear-eyed, brave-hearted, and quite personal look at the benefits of meditation that offers new in-sights as to how this ancient practice can help modern lives

while avoiding the pitfall of cliché. This is a book that will help people, simply put.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Dey Street: 256 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-226543-2 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

AM

ERIC

AN

MEM

OIR

26



MER

ICA

N M

EMO

IR

27

A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean Tori Murden McClure

A Pearl in the Storm is not a memoir about great successes—of which Tori Murden McClure has many. Instead, the bulk of her inspiring story focuses on her first failed attempt to row across the Atlantic Ocean alone. After being rescued from the middle of the worst hurricane season in the North Atlantic, McClure must deal with the self-imposed disgrace tied to her failed attempt. She is forced to embrace her own vulnerability. After meeting Muhammad Ali—and being told that she does not want to be known as the woman who “almost” rowed across the Atlantic Ocean—she decides to shake off the weight of failure and attempt her great feat again. With her characteristic wry sense of humor, she explores her interaction with failure, which she responded to and ultimately overcame.

“The reader of this book encounters a rare spirit whose courage is an inspiration.” —Jill Ker Conway, author of The Road from Coorain

Freshman Common Read: Northern Kentucky University, Brescia University, Erksine College, Spring Hill College


Breakthrough: How One Teen Innovator Is Changing the World Jack Andraka

When a dear family friend passed away from pancreatic cancer, Jack Andraka was inspired to create a better method of early detection. At the age of 15, he garnered international attention for his breakthrough: a four cent strip of paper capable of detecting pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancers 400 times more effectively than the previous standard. But Jack’s story is not just a story of dizzying international success; it is a story of overcoming depression and homophobic bullying and finding the resilience to persevere and come out. His account inspires young people, who he argues are the most innovative, to fight for the right to be taken seriously and to pursue their own dreams.

“[N]ot only interesting, but beautifully honest . . . Jack’s life unfurls with the . . . realities of growing up that, at times, conflict with identity and awareness, self- esteem, and self-worth [and] are openly shared with the reader. Andraka is certainly an inspiration beyond his generation.” —USA Today

HarperCollins: 256 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-236965-9 • hc • $18.99 ($23.99/CAN)



AM

ERIC

AN

MEM

OIR

28

The Wild Truth: Carine McCandlessForeword by John Krakauer

The success of Into the Wild brought Chris McCandless’s story to millions of readers and movie-goers, but left them asking, “What set the stage for Chris’s willingness to embrace the dangers of Alaska’s wilderness?”

Carine McCandless, Chris’s sister and closest friend, wit-nessed firsthand the complex and abusive relationship Chris had with his father that formed his worldview. Never before having shared this story, Carine has spent more than 20 years seeking the same understanding, reconciliation, and absolution she believes Chris finally found in an abandoned school bus in Alaska. In this touching and deeply personal memoir, she reveals how she has learned that real redemp-

tion can only come from speaking the truth.

HarperOne: 304 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-232514-3 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available November 2015: 978-0-06-232515-0 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN)

Just Kids Patti Smith

• National Book Award Winner

A chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art and devotion. Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed New York City from Coney Island to 42nd Street, and set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea—where they entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the late 1960s and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding.

Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late 1960s and 1970s and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists’ ascent, their prelude to fame.

“This beautifully written memoir is a haunting elegy for Smith’s soul mate Robert Map-plethorpe and a lost New York City. One of the best books ever written on becoming an artist.” —Washington Post, Best Books of 2010

Ecco: 320 pp. 2010 • 978-0-06-093622-8 • pb • $16.00 ($20.00/CAN)



MER

ICA

N M

EMO

IR

29

Etched in Sand: A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island Regina Calcaterra

Regina Calcaterra is a successful lawyer, New York State official, and activist. Her early life, however, was quite different. Regina and her four siblings survived an abusive and painful childhood only to find themselves faced with the challenges of the foster-care system and intermittent homelessness. Despite her difficult circumstances, she remained committed to her education, and eventually put herself through college. Etched in Sand is a reminder for students that regardless of social status, the American Dream is still within reach for those who have the desire and the determination to succeed.

Regina is on the board of You Gotta Believe—an organization whose aim is to find adoptive parents for teens and pre-teens before they age out of the foster care system and run the

extremely high risk of becoming homeless. Visit yougottabelieve.org for more information.

“Riveting reading from start to finish.” —Kirkus Reviews

Freshman Common Read: Hesston College


I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson Jackie RobinsonWith introductions by Hank Aaron and Cornel West

Before Barry Bonds, before Reggie Jackson, before Hank Aaron, baseball’s stars had one undeniable trait in common: they were all white. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. But I Never Had It Made endures as an inspiring story of a man whose heroism extended well beyond the playing field, covering everything from his college days as UCLA’s first four-letter athlete, his army stint in World War II, and his civil rights activism.

“A disturbing and enlightening self-portrait by one of Amer-ica’s genuine heroes.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Freshman Common Read: University of California, Los Angeles

Ecco: 320 pp. 2003 • 978-0-06-055597-9 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

http://yougottabelieve.org



AM

ERIC

AN

MEM

OIR

30

Black Boy Richard Wright, with a Foreword by Edward P. Jones

Black Boy, a classic American autobiography, measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as “black boy.”

“Superb. . . . Most important of all is the opportunity we have now to hear a great American writer speak with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives.” —Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review

“A major event in American literary history.” —The New Republic

Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 448 pp. 2007 • 978-0-06-113024-3 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir Neil White

Neil White wanted only the best for those he loved and was willing to go to any lengths to provide it—which is how he ended up in a federal prison in rural Louisiana, serving eighteen months for bank fraud. But it was no ordinary prison. The beautiful, isolated colony in Carville, Louisiana, was also home to the last people in the continental United States disfigured by leprosy—a small circle of outcasts who had forged a tenacious, clandestine community, a fortress to repel the cruelty of the outside world.

“A remarkable story of a young man’s loss of everything he deemed important, and his ultimate discovery that redemp-tion can be taught by society’s most dreaded outcasts.” —John Grisham

Freshman Common Read: St. Bonaventure University




MER

ICA

N M

EMO

IR

31

Positive: A Memoir Paige Rawl with Ali Benjamin

Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. On an unremarkable day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status—and within hours the bullying began. From that moment forward, every day was like walking through a minefield. Paige was never sure when or from where the next text, taunt, or hateful message would come. Then one night, desperate for escape, fifteen-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills.

That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning. Paige’s memoir calls for students to choose action over complacency, compassion over cruelty—and above all, to be Positive.

HarperCollins: 288 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-234251-5 • hc • $18.99 ($23.99/CAN)

Double Take: A Memoir Kevin Michael Connolly

Kevin Michael Connolly has seen the world in a way most of your students never will. Whether swarmed by Japanese tourists at Epcot Center as a child or holding court at the X Games on his mono-ski as a teenager, Connolly has been an object of curiosity since the day he was born without legs. In an attempt to capture the stares of others, he took more than 30,000 photographs of people staring at him. In Double Take, Kevin casts the lens inward to explore how we view ourselves and what it means to truly see another person.

“Kevin Connolly has used an unusual physical circumstance to create a gripping work of art. This deeply affecting memoir will place him in the company of Jeanette Walls and Augusten Burroughs.” —Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants

Freshman Common Read: University of Florida, Montana State University, University of New Haven, Colorado Mountain College, and the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse


AM

ERIC

AN

MEM

OIR


Autobiography of a Face Lucy Grealy, With an Afterword by Ann Patchett

“I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I’ve spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison.” —Lucy Grealy

At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story with remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit.

“Grealy has turned her misfortune into a book that is engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of her own wit and style and class.”

—Washington Post Book World

Freshman Common Read: Miami University (with Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett), Ohio State University


Truth & Beauty: A Friendship Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work was. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long, cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this book shows students what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined.

“This frank, perceptive book can be read in many ways, not only as a story of friendship but also as a young artist’s eye-opening introduction to the wider world.” —New York Times

“Truth & Beauty is Patchett’s tribute to Grealy, at once a grief-haunted eulogy and a larger meditation on the solace and limitations of friendship.” —Washington Post

Freshman Common Read: Miami University (with Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy), Clemson College


KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available32



Orphan Train: A Novel Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train tells the story of the unlikely friendship be-tween Molly Ayers, a foster-kid hoping to avoid juvie, and Vivian Daly, the elderly woman she has been assigned to help. Shared experience serves to unite them as it comes to light that the aged Vivian spent time on “orphan trains,” which ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest from 1854 to 1929, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. The subject matter will grab students’ attention because so few people know about this particularly heartbreaking piece of American history and the novel’s message of resilience and unlikely bonds will carry them through.

“A compelling story about loss, adaptability, and courage. . . . With compassion and deli-cacy Kline presents a little-known chapter of American history and draws comparisons with the modern-day foster care system.” —Library Journal

Freshman Common Read: Edgewood College, Richard Stockton College, Owensboro Com-munity and Technical College, University of Kentucky


The Round House: A Novel Louise Erdrich

• Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction

This exquisitely told story set on the Ojibwe reservation in contemporary North Dakota follows a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. The Round House is “moving, complex, and surpris-ingly uplifting . . . likely to be dubbed the Native American To Kill a Mockingbird.” (Parade)

“Erdrich skillfully makes Joe’s coming-of-age both universal and specific . . . the story is also ripe with detail about reser-vation life.” —Library Journal

Freshman Common Read: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Minnesota, Oswego State University of New York


FICTIO

N

33



FICTIO

N

34

Wench: A Novel Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Set before the Civil War in the real resort of Tawana House in Ohio—a favorite of Southern white men who vacationed there with their black enslaved mistresses—Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery through the lives of the women who became friends during annual visits to the resort.

“Readers entranced by The Help will be equally riveted by Wench. A deeply moving, beautifully written novel told from the heart.” —USA Today

“Perkins-Valdez manages to shed a poetic light on one of the ugliest chapters in American history.” —Essence

Freshman Common Read: Florida A&M

Amistad: 320 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-170656-1 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

Balm: A Novel Dolen Perkins-Valdez

In Balm, the New York Times bestselling author of Wench explores the trauma of the Civil War and it’s aftermath. As a divided nation tries to come together once again, three formerly enslaved women are caught up in a desperate, unexpected battle for survival in a community desperate to lay the pain of the past to rest. Beautiful in its historical atmosphere and emotional depth, Balm is a stirring novel of love, loss, hope, and reconciliation set during one of the most critical periods in American history.

“Perkins-Valdez deftly weaves her characters’ longings with the gritty realities of American life after war’s devastations . . . No sophomore slump is in evidence here. Readers . . . will be intrigued by the post-Civil War lives of three Southern trans-plants to Chicago.” —Library Journal

Amistad: 288 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-231865-7 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in May 2016: 978-0-06-231866-4 • pb • $15.00 ($18.50/CAN)

FICTIO

N



35

All Involved: A Novel Ryan Gattis

A gritty and cinematic work of fiction, All Involved vividly re-creates the turbulent and terrifying time following the Rodney King verdict in 1992, set in a sliver of Los Angeles largely ignored by the media during the riots. Ryan Gattis tells seventeen interconnected first-person narratives that paint a portrait of modern America itself—laying bare our history, our prejudices, and our complexities.

“An overwhelming and fully immersive performance from Gattis, who finds the humanity and poetry in the most inhu-mane of circumstances.” —Library Journal

Ecco: 384 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-237879-8 • hc • $27.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available in January 2016: 978-0-06-237880-4 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

Endangered: A Novel Jean Love Cush

When Janae Williams’s 15-year-old son, Malik, is accused of a murder he has not committed, she is devastated. Unable to pay his legal fees, she reluctantly makes a deal with human rights attorney Roger Whitford. Roger is determined to expose the system for what it really is—a hostile environment that is threatening the very existence of black boys. He argues that just like other threatened “animals,” black boys require protection under a broadened Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to unjust treatment in the justice system.

Armed with Janae’s unwavering support and two decades of research, Malik’s legal team files an ESA claim and starts a media blitz that results in a firestorm of debate on race, prison, and politics in America. A raw and exhilarating courtroom

thriller, Endangered is a gripping novel about one woman’s determination to save her son, shedding light on the racist system that still governs us today.

Amistad: 272 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-231623-3 • hc • $24.99 ($31.00/CAN)



FICTIO

N

36

Welcome to Braggsville: A Novel T. Geronimo Johnson

From the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of Hold it ‘Til it Hurts comes a dark and socially provocative southern-fried comedy about four liberal UC Berkeley students who stage a mock lynching during a Civil War reenactment in small-town Georgia, and the disastrous consequences of their actions. With tremendous social insight and a unique, generous heart, Welcome to Braggsville revives the coming-of-age novel for a new generation, reminding us what it is to be young and idealistic, while painting an indelible portrait of contemporary America.

“The most dazzling, most unsettling, most oh-my-God-lis-ten-up novel you’ll read this year. T. Geronimo Johnson plays cultural criticism like it’s acid jazz. His shockingly funny story

pricks every nerve of the American body politic. Welcome to Braggsville. It’s about time.” —The Washington Post

William Morrow: 384 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-230212-0 • hc • $25.99 ($31.99/CAN) Paperback available in September 2015: 978-0-06-230213-7 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk: A Novel Ben Fountain

• Winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Fiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, and a National Book Award Finalist

Three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare with Iraqi insurgents—and the video that went viral—transformed the Bravo Squad into America’s most sought-after heroes. Ben Fountain’s novel follows the surviving members of the Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive “Victory Tour” at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys.

“Fountain’s excellent first novel follows a group of soldiers at a Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving Day. . . . Through

the eyes of the titular soldier, Fountain creates a minutely observed portrait of a society with woefully misplaced priorities.” —The New Yorker

“[A] masterful gut-punch of a debut novel.” —Washington Post

Ecco: 320 pp. 2012 • 978-0-06-088561-8 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

FICTIO

N



37

State of Wonder: A Novel Ann Patchett

Years ago, Marina Singh traded the hard decisions and intensity of medical practice for the quieter world of research at a pharmaceutical company, a choice that has haunted her life. Enveloping herself in safety, limiting emotional risk, she shares a quiet friendship with her colleague Anders Eckman. But Marina’s security is shaken when she learns that Anders, sent to the Amazon to check on a field team, is dead—and her boss wants her to go into the jungle to discover what happened.

“The wonder of State of Wonder is that Patchett poses essen-tial philosophical and bioethical arguments in a story that still speeds along like a literary thriller, reaching a tremendous, deeply emotional crescendo.” —Time

Freshman Common Read: Duke University


Bel Canto: A Novel Ann Patchett

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country’s vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera’s most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage.

“Patchett doing what she does best. . . . What gives this novel its power is Patchett’s flair for sketching the subtleties of her characters’ behavior.” —New York Times Book Review

“Patchett’s tragicomic novel—a fantasia of guns and Puccini and Red Cross negotiations—invokes the glorious, unreliable promises of art, politics, and love.” —The New Yorker

Freshman Common Read: NYU/Steinhardt School, Converse College, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Harper Perennial: 352 pp. 2005 • P.S. • 978-0-06-083872-0 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)



FICTIO

N

38

Serena: A Novel Ron Rash

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pember-ton arrive in the mountains of North Carolina from Boston to create a timber empire. Serena is new to the mountains—but she soon shows herself the equal of any worker, overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes, even saving her husband’s life in the wilderness.

“Rash’s novel is a tightly knit tale of industrial development, greed, and betrayal. . . . Rash’s evocative rendering of the blighted landscape and the tough characters who inhabit it recalls both John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy, while the malignant character of Serena, who projects a ‘stark un-flinching certainty’ about her actions, propels his finely paced story.” —The New Yorker

Freshman Common Read: Western Carolina University

Ecco: 400 pp. 2009 • 978-0-06-147084-4 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN) Also available from Ron Rash:Burning Bright: Stories • Ecco: 224 pp. • 2011 • 978-0-06-180412-0 • pb • $12.99 ($15.99/CAN)

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil.

This tale of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction, over the course of three decades in post-colonial Africa, is set against one of history’s most dramatic political parables.

“Fully realized, richly embroidered, triumphant.” —Newsweek

Freshman Common Read: Augsburg College

Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 576 pp. 2005 • P.S. • 978-0-06-078650-2 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

FICTIO

N



39

The Bees: A Novel Laline Paull

The Bees, which reads like a cross between dystopian favorites The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale, tells the story of Flora 717, a bee in a hive where only the Queen may breed and any deformity means death. When she finds herself in the possession of a deadly secret, she becomes a hunted criminal whose decisions will mean life or death for her entire hive. This highly researched and transporting novel allows students to immerse themselves in the ancient culture of the beehive as it confronts real, looming environmental disaster.

“Told with rapturously attentive imagination. . . . Few novels create such a singular reading experience.” —New York Times Book Review

Ecco: 352 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-233117-5 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell: A Novel Nadia Hashimi

Afghan-American author Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell tells the entwined stories of two Afghan women in the same family, separated by a century, who find freedom in the tradition of bacha posh—an ancient custom that allows girls to dress and live as boys . . . until they are of marriageable age. Crisscrossing in time, it is a luminous and unforgettable tale of two women, destiny, and identity in Afghanistan.

“[Hashimi]’s always engaging multigenerational tale is a portrait of Afghanistan in all of its perplexing, enigmatic glory, and a mirror into the still ongoing struggles of Afghan women.” —San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

William Morrow: 480 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-224476-5 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)



FICTIO

N

40

The Alchemist Paulo Coelho

“To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.” —from The Alchemist

The Alchemist tells the story of Santiago, the young Andalu-sian shepherd who dreams of buried treasure in Egypt and embarks upon a challenging journey to find it. With all the simplicity and symbolic richness of a fable, Coelho’s novel is both a hunt for buried treasure and a spiritual quest, with a hero who overcomes trials along the way with the help of teachers who guide him.

Paulo Coelho’s books have difficult—and valuable—lessons to impart, but much of their appeal comes from the way Coelho dramatizes these lessons. With exquisite simplicity,

the author brings to these stories his own experience of confronting life’s most profound challenges, his broad knowledge of philosophy, psychology, and literature, and a deeply-felt humanity.

Freshman Common Read: Erskine College, Montana State University at Bozeman, Immaculata University

HarperOne: 208 pp. 2014 • 978-0-06-231500-7 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

Beasts of No Nation: A Novel Uzodinma Iweala

This short but enormously powerful novel is told in the voice of Agu, a young boy in an unnamed West African nation, who is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters as civil war engulfs his country. In a strikingly original voice that vividly captures Agu’s youth and confusion, Uzodinma Iweala has produced a harrowing, inventive, and deeply affecting novel that will give students the opportunity to explore current issues with a deeply human voice as their guide.

“The hypnotic present tense, first-person narration draws the reader deep into the child soldier’s shattered psyche.” —The Washington Post

Freshman Common Read: Kalamazoo College




KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available 41KEY: ebook Available Audio Book Available


41

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

For those who want to give their students a global per-spective, this story of a young man from poverty-stricken Malawi who built a windmill from scavenged parts to bring electricity to his village hits all the right notes: a deep look into life in a developing nation, science and engineering in-sights—and inspiration.

William is now an engineering major at Dartmouth College.

“This is an amazing, inspiring and heartwarming story! It’s about harnessing the power not just of the wind but of imagi-nation and ingenuity. Those are the most important forces we have for saving our planet. William Kamkwamba is a hero for our age.” —Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein

Freshman Common Read: University of Michigan Ann-Arbor, Avila University, Purdue University, Maryville University, University of Florida, Central College, Boise State University, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, Utah Valley University, Winthrop University, and California State University, Chico—among others


Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon Paul Rosolie

One the great living explorers and naturalists, 25-year-old Paul Rosolie has worked on conservation projects in tropi-cal ecosystems all over the world, specializing in the Western Amazon. Along with running Tamandua Expeditions, a proj-ect which uses ecotourism to support rainforest conservation, Paul has visited some of the last unexplored places on the map. He has traveled with poachers into deep jungle to document the black market trade in endangered species, he has learned from indigenous trackers about the Amazon’s flora and fauna, and he has explored a previously undocumented ecosystem that has come to be called the “floating forest.” Mother of God is Rosalie’s testament to the wonders of the rainforest, inviting students to become “junglekeepers,” and conveying the vital

lesson that if we don’t work to protect biodiversity, we may be among the last people who will be able to explore the primordial wonder of the Amazon.

“A great adventure with a great and enduring point: we simply must protect these last, vast slices of the planet that still work the way they’re supposed to.” —Bill McKibben, 350.org

Harper Paperbacks: 320 pp.2015 • 978-0-06-225952-3 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

GLO

BA

L ISSUES &

MEM

OIR



GLO

BA

L ISSUES &

MEM

OIR

42

GLO

BA

L ISSUES &

MEM

OIR

Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal Conor Grennan

Conor Grennan left his job with a plan to travel the world. Stopping first to volunteer at the Little Princes Orphanage in war-torn Nepal, his life changed forever. Conor soon discovered that many of the children with whom he had been playing with were not orphans, but the victims of human traffickers, who had kidnapped children from their homes and families. Shocked and affected by what he learned, Conor opened his own orphanage two years later, with the mission of helping to reunite stolen kids with their families.

“The author stumbles into volunteering in an orphanage in Nepal and gets involved in reuniting trafficked children with their families. The energy of these children will make you laugh even though they’ve been through hardship and loss.”

—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Freshman Common Read: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Mount St. Olive, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ball State University, St. Bonaventure Uni-versity, San Jose State University, Otterbein University, Central College, Wingate University, Michigan Technical University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute—among others


However Long the Night: Molly Melching’s Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls Triumph Aimee Molloy

Here is the story of America-to-Senegal transplant Molly Melching and her collaboration with Senegalese locals to create the remarkably successful Tostan—a democracy and human-rights-based education initiative to promote relationships built upon dignity, equality, and respect. Molly and Tostan’s philosophy is to work within a community, allowing people to make major changes to their culture of their own volition with the understanding that true change must come from within. Tostan’s groundbreaking strategies have led to better education for the women of rural Africa, improved health care, a decrease in child/forced marriage, and declarations by thousands of African communities to abandon the centuries-old practice of female genital cutting.

“Molly Melching saw a deeply disturbing but deeply entrenched practice and refused to accept that it couldn’t be stopped. Her relentless efforts are proof that commitment and partnership can drive transformational change.” —Hillary Rodham Clinton



F IRS T-YEAR S TUDENT: BOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPT IONG

LOB

AL ISSU

ES & M

EMO

IR

43

Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade— and How We Can Fight It [REVISED EDITION] David Batstone

In this newly revised and updated edition, award-winning journalist, author, and professor David Batstone gives stu-dents the facts on the $31 billion human trafficking epidemic, profiles the new generation of abolitionists who are fighting it, and reports on how to stop it.

“Not for Sale not only informs, it challenges each reader to take action. My students were appalled to learn of the preva-lence of human trafficking around the world, but this insight inspired many of them to begin working on a local, nation-al, or global level to bring about change. David Batstone will inspire any student.” —Stephanie M. Foote, Director, Aca-demic Success Center, University of South Carolina Aiken

Freshman Common Read: Kennesaw State University, University of South Carolina Aiken

HarperOne: 304 pp. 2010 • 978-0-06-199883-6 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

First They Killed My Father A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers Loung Ung

One of seven children of a government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung’s family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

“[Ung] tells her stories straightforwardly, vividly, and with-out any strenuous effort to explicate their importance, al-lowing the stories themselves to create their own impact.” —New York Times

Freshman Common Read: Ball State University, Colin County Community College, Stanford’s Three-Book Program

Harper Perennial: 288 pp. 2006 • 978-0-06-085626-7 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.Also Available: Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind • Harper Perennial: 320 pp. • 2006 • 978-0-06-073395-7 • pb • $13.99 ($17.50/CAN

Lulu in the Sky: a Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness • Harper Perennial: 368 pp. • 2012 • 978-0-06-209191-8 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)





GLO

BA

L ISSUES &

MEM

OIR

44

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

The life Kamila Sidiqi had known changed overnight when the Taliban seized control of Kabul. After receiving a teaching degree during the civil war, Kamila was subsequently banned from school and confined to her home. When her father and brother were forced to flee the city, Kamila became the sole breadwinner for her five siblings. Armed only with grit and determination, she picked up a needle and thread and created a thriving business of her own.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana moves beyond the headlines to transport students to an Afghanistan they have never seen before. This is a story of war, but it is also a story of sisterhood and resilience in the face of despair. Kamila Sidiqi’s journey will inspire your students, but it will also change the way they

think about one of the most important political and humanitarian issues of our time.

“Pure inspiration. . . . It reveals in acute detail the anxiety of ordinary people trying to fold their lives around the whims and laws of abusive regimes.” —Los Angeles Times

Freshman Common Read: University of Florida, Berry College

Harper Perennial: 304 pp. 2012 • 978-0-06-173247-8 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN) ★Teaching materials available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran Roxana Saberi

On the morning of January 31, 2009, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi was pulled from her home by four men, accused of espionage and arrested. Between Two Worlds is the liberated Saberi’s penetrating look at Iran and its political tensions, based on six years of research and interviews with Iranians across society.

“Between Two Worlds is an extraordinary story of how an in-nocent young woman got caught up in the current of political events and met individuals whose stories vividly depict hu-man rights violations in Iran.” —Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Freshman Common Read: Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Moraine Valley Community College




F IRS T-YEAR S TUDENT: BOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPT IONG

LOB

AL ISSU

ES & M

EMO

IR

45

The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Hyeonseo Lee

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by the secretive and brutal communist regime created by dictator Kim Il-Sung and his successors. Although her privileged family background insulated her from the cruelest horrors of the regime, living near the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom, and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to realize that she had been brainwashed her entire life. At age seventeen, she decided to escape. With this compelling and unforgettable memoir based on her acclaimed TED Talk, which Oprah called “The most riveting TED talk ever,” Hyeonseo Lee becomes one of the first female defectors from North Korea to share her story.

Strong, brave and eloquent, this book is a triumph of her remarkable spirit.

“This is a sad and beautiful story of a girl who could not even keep her name, yet overcame all with the identity of what it is to be human.” —Jang Jin-sung, author of Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee–A Look Inside North Korea

William Collins: 320 pp. 2015 • 978-0-06-755483-6 • hc • $26.99 ($34.99/CAN) Paperback available in May 2016: 978-0-06-755485-0 • pb • $15.99 ($21.99/CAN)

The Girl Who Fell To Earth: A Memoir Sophia Al-Maria

With poignancy and humor, Al-Maria shares the struggles of being raised by an American mother and Bedouin father while shuttling between homes in the Pacific Northwest and the Middle East. Part family saga and part personal quest, it traces Al-Maria’s journey to make a place for herself in two different worlds. While her life growing up may have been unusual, Al-Maria’s story is marked by its subtlety as she insightfully examines cultural differences and commonalities.

“Daring, witty, and brimming with the unexpected, Sophia Al-Maria’s riveting memoir is as much about America as it is [about] the Arab world. Chronicling a coming-of-age be-tween Washington State, Doha, and Cairo, this bracing first book startles and illuminates.” —Yasmine El Rashidi, author of The Battle for Egypt

Freshman Common Read: Northwestern University’s campuses in Evanston and Qatar




Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn’t Stephen Prothero

Are your students ready to discuss the domestic and foreign challenges facing our country?

Stephen Prothero, chair of the religion department at Boston University, says, “We have a major civic crisis on our hands.” Although the United States is a deeply religious nation, many Americans—even the most devout—are shockingly ignorant about religion. Yet, much of our public debate is rooted in religious rhetoric. Prothero offers a practical solution: a Dictionary of Religious Literacy—key terms, beliefs, characters, and stories of Christianity, Islam, and other religions that every student needs to understand.

“Prothero is the kind of professor who makes you want to go back to college. [He] is a world-religions scholar with the soul of a late-night television comic.” —Newsweek

Freshman Common Read: Western Washington University


God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World Stephen Prothero

Stephen Prothero debunks the popular myth that all religions are “different paths to the same God.” Contrary to what many popular religion writers say, we actually disrespect the core of each religious tradition when we treat them as if they were indistinguishable. God Is Not One showcases the disparities between each tradition, revealing the undeniable differences drawn by religious boundaries of belief and practice.

“Enough of lazy paddling of a false and dangerous idea that all religions are the same! They are the same and they are different, they are clashing and complementary, overlapping and incongruous. To live together well in a globalized world, we need to know each other’s faiths, learn to debate in a civil way about their truth claims, and above come to respect each

other even when we disagree on what matters to us the most. A very much needed book!” —Miroslav Volf, Professor, Yale University


RELIG

ION

46


RELIG

ION

47


Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu

Written with his daughter, Mpho, who is also an ordained Anglican minister, Tutu argues that God has made the world as a grand theater for us to work out our call to goodness; it is up to us to live up to this calling, but God is there to help us every step of the way. Father and daughter offer an inspiring message of hope that will transform students into activists for change and blessing.

“Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu have seen more evil than most of us can begin to imagine. . . . That is why their book is shocking: How can they say that all people ‘are fundamentally good,’ that ‘we are all made to inhabit heav-en’? . . . Like Augustine and Calvin and their heirs, the Tutus acknowledge the mixture of good and bad in all of us. But

where traditional theologians speak of original sin, the bad seed that spoils everything we attempt, the Tutus speak of original goodness—the good seed that can be nurtured until it eventually drives out evil.” —The Christian Century

Freshman Common Read: College of St. Elizabeth

HarperOne: 224 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-170660-8 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99)

Also availableThe Words of Desmond TutuSelected and Introduced by Naomi TutuWilliam Morrow Paperbacks: 112 pp.1999 • 9781557042828 • pb • $11.95 ($14.99/CAN)

God Is Not a Christian:And Other ProvocationsDesmond TutuHarperOne: 256 pp.2011 • 978-0-06-187462-8 • pb • $23.99 ($29.99/CAN)

The Book of Forgiving:The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our WorldDesmond Tutu & Mpho TutuHarperOne: 240 pp.2015 • 978-0-06-220357-1 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)



Letting Go (Fifth Edition): A Parents’ Guide To Understanding The College Years Karen Levin Coburn & Madge Lawrence Treeger

Based on real-life experience and recommended by colleges and universities around the country, Letting Go offers com-passionate, practical, and up-to-the-minute information to help parents with the emotional and social changes of the college years. The fifth edition features updated research on admissions and finances; identity and student development; student attitudes, including political and social views; health concerns and behaviors; use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs; choices of majors and careers; religious and spiritu-al beliefs and practices. This edition also includes examples of new programs and practices on campus that address growing concerns about mental health; safety and security; and sustainability; as well as new opportunities for interna-

tional study, undergraduate research, interdisciplinary majors, and increased interaction with faculty.

Harper Perennial: 464 pp. 2009 • 978-0-06-166573-8 • pb • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN) A workshop outline for orientation programs is available at www.HarperAcademic.com.

The Best Four Years: How to Survive and Thrive in College (and Life) Adam Shepard

After speaking at colleges and universities across the nation, the author of Scratch Beginnings found he was being asked the same questions by students and parents hungry to know how to capitalize on their education: How do you walk away with more than just a piece of paper saying you graduated? What are the pitfalls and the opportunities that you should look out for? How do you make the absolute most of your time in college?

In The Best Four Years, he uses his own experiences from college and lessons learned on his speaking circuit to examine and explain the many aspects (and surprises) of college life, including:

• The transition to life away from home

• The ins and outs of a tight budget• The necessity of scheduling

Harper Perennial: 240 pp. 2011 • 978-0-06-198392-4 • $14.99 ($18.50/CAN)

• The importance of time off• The subtleties of social life, and much more.

OR

IENTA

TION

48



OR

IENTA

TION

49


Getting from College To Career (Revised Edition): Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World Lindsey Pollak

It’s the classic conundrum that faces college students, recent graduates and young professionals: How do I get a job with no experience and how do I get experience without a job? In this newly revised edition, consultant and Global Spokesperson for LinkedIn Lindsey Pollak presents 101 things to do to build a great résumé and gain excellent experience. Pollak helps students use social media on the job hunt, stand out in today’s ultra-competitive job market, and make every networking opportunity a success. Her insightful ideas will provide excellent guidance for recent graduates and those new to the workforce.

“A well-written, lively and easy to follow guide.” —Time.com

“Pollak’s thorough research reveals some startling facts that the modern job-searcher may be overlooking.” —Metro New York

HarperBusiness: 352 pp. 2012 • 978-0-06-206927-6 • pb • $16.99 ($21.00/CAN)

Professors’ Guide to Getting Good Grades in College Lynn F. Jacobs, Ph.D. & Jeremy S. Hyman, M.A.

The Professors’ Guide to Getting Good Grades in College re-veals insider secrets about how professors grade and gives practical tips designed to maximize student success in all kinds of courses. Organized around five “grade-bearing” mo-ments, the Professors’ Guide to Getting Good Grades in College includes topics such as:

• How to pick courses with an eye to grades • Top 10 tips for taking excellent lecture notes

• Best test-preparation and test-taking strategies

“The Professors’ Guide to Getting Good Grades in College deserves an A+. . . . Filled with concrete techniques and strategies for earning the best grades possible, students can be-come efficient learners, spending time on what is important.” —Dr. Eric R. White, Ex-ecutive Director, Division of Undergraduate Studies and Associate Dean for Advising, Pennsylvania State University

Collins Reference: 368 pp. 2006 • 978-0-06-087908-2 • pb • $15.99 ($19.99/CAN)

• Strategies for staying motivated

• How to get the most from your professor


10% Happier

AAl-Maria, Sophia Alchemist, TheAll AmericanAll InvolvedAndraka, JackAshley’s War Autobiography of a Face

BBad FeministBalmBatstone, DavidBeasts of No NationBeavan, ColinBees, TheBeing WrongBel CantoBenjamin, AliBest Four Years, TheBetween Two WorldsBilly Lynn’s Long Halftime WalkBlack BoyBlanco, RichardBook of Forgiving, TheBoy Who Harnessed the Wind,

TheBreakthroughBrockman, John

CCalcaterra, ReginaChain, TheCoburn, Karen LevinCode Name: Johnny WalkerCoelho, PauloConnolly, Kevin MichaelCuadros, PaulCush, Jean Love

DDeadly Wandering, ADeFelice, JimDevil in the GroveDouble TakeDressmaker of Khair Khana,

TheDrinkDubner, Stephen J.

EEndangeredErdrich, LouiseEtched in SandEubanks, Steve

FFind Me UnafraidFirst They Killed My FatherFountain, BenFreakonomics

GGattis, RyanGay, RoxaneGenoways, TedGetting from College

to CareerGirl in the WoodsGirl Who Fell to Earth, TheGirl With Seven Names, TheGo Set a WatchmanGod Is Not a ChristianGod Is Not OneGrealy, LucyGreen, KristenGrennan, ConorGuyland

HHamlet’s BlackberryHappiness Project, TheHarris, DanHart, CarlHashimi, NadiaHerzog, HalHigh PriceHome on the Field, AHow to Be AliveHow to Be BlackHowever Long the NightHyman, Jeremy S.

II Am Not a SlutI Never Had it MadeIn the Sanctuary of OutcastsinGeniusInsight OutIs the Internet Changing the

Way You Think?Iweala, Uzodinma

JJacobs, Lynn F.Johnson, T. GeronimoJohnston, Ann DowsettJust Kids

KKamkwamba, WilliamKimmel, MichaelKing, GilbertKingsolver, BarbaraKline, Christina Baker

Index26

4540223527

732

6344340

53910373148443630

64741

2713

2925482340312135

823173144

19

9

35332922

44336

9

356

2549

74545

8474632184220

1226261939111921

5184249

202930141413

40

49361928

4120173833


IND

EX

50

IND

EX


LLee, HarperLee, HyeonseoLemmon, Gayle TzemachLeonard, KellyLetting GoLevitt, Steven D.Little PrincesLucky ChildLulu in the Sky

MMacFarlane-Barrow, MagnusMade for GoodnessMatis, AspenMcCandless, CarineMcClure, Tori MurdenMcCullough, Jr., DavidMealer, BryanMolloy, AimeeMother of God

NNewkirk, PamelaNot for Sale

OOdede, Kennedy One More StepOrphan TrainOutlaw Platoon

PPaddock, BonnerParadox of Choice, TheParnell, SeanPatchett, AnnPaull, LalinePearl in the Storm, APearl that Broke Its ShellPerkins-Valdez, DolenPoisonwood Bible, ThePollak, LindseyPositivePosner, JessicaPowers, WilliamPrince of Los CocuyosProfessors’ Guide to Getting

Good Grades in CollegeProthero, Stephen

RRadioactiveRash, RonRawl, PaigeRedniss, LaurenReligious LiteracyRichtel, MattRoberts, DianeRobinson, JackieRoker, AlRosolie, PaulRound House, TheRubin, Gretchen

SSaberi, RoxanaSchulz, KathrynSchwartz, BarryScratch BeginningsSearch Inside YourselfSeelig, TinaSerenaShed That Fed a Million

ChildrenShepard, AdamSilverman, JacobSites, KevinSmith, PattiSome We Love, Some We Hate,

Some We EatSomething Must Be Done

About Prince Edward CountySounds of the RiverSpectacleStandiford, LeeState of WonderStorm of the CenturySuperfreakonomics

TTan, Chade-MengTanenbaum, LeoraTerms of ServiceThings They Cannot Say, TheThink Like a FreakThis Will Make You SmarterThurston, BaratundeTreeger, Madge LawrenceTribalTruth & BeautyTutu, DesmondTutu, Mpho

UUng, Loung

WWalker, JohnnyWater to the AngelsWelcome to BraggsvilleWenchWhat I Wish I Knew When

I Was 20When to Rob a BankWhite, NeilWild Truth, TheWords of Desmond Tutu, TheWright, Richard

YYes, AndYorton, TomYou Are Not Special

845

7, 441548

9424343

447

7282716414241

1743

45

3322

51122

32, 3739273934384931

412

649

46

1038311046

8212925413326

4410112416

14, 1538

4

24, 4812232811

18

4517243725

9

16201223

913184821324747

43

2324363415

930284730

151516

51

52


Ordering InformationFreshman Common Book CommitteesIf you need sample copies for your common book committee members, please let us know:

Email: [email protected] Phone: 212 207 7546Visit Us at HarperFirstYear.hc.com

Desk Copies

United StatesComplimentary desk copies are available for instructors who adopt a HarperCollins title for course use. One desk copy is available for every 15 new copies of each title ordered with a limit of 10 desk copies per adoption.

Please visit www.HarperAcademic.com to request a desk copy.

You may also:• Call 1.800.331.3761• Fax 1.800.822.4090

Or, mail your request to:

HarperCollins Publishers Customer Service DepartmentSuite 300 53 Glenmaura National Blvd. Moosic, PA 18507

Desk copies are shipped via UPS care of your institution. Desk copies cannot be sent to residences. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.

To expedite your order, please ensure that the title you wish to receive is currently published by HarperCollins. To do this, use the search feature in the right-hand sidebar on our home page.

We cannot provide desk copies of books published by imprints of HarperCollins Christian Publishing.

For a desk copy of a Zondervan title, please contact [email protected].

For a desk copy of a Thomas Nelson book, please contact [email protected].

Note that we no longer distribute Hyperion titles; to request a desk copy of a Hyperion title, please email [email protected] or fax (212) 364-0943.

CanadaNot all books published by HarperCollins in the United States are available from HarperCollins Canada. Please check to make certain that HarperCollins Canada is the publisher in Canada.

To request a desk copy online, visit the HarperCollins Canada website at

http://www.harpercollins.ca/

You may also:

• Call 1.800.387.0117• Fax 1.800.668.5788

Or, mail your request to:

HarperCollins Canada, Ltd.1995 Markham RoadScarborough, OntarioM1B 5M8 Canada

52

OR

DER

ING

INFO

RM

ATIO

N

mailto:academic%40harpercollins.com?subject=Sample%20Copies%3A%20Freshman%20Common%20Books

http://HarperFirstYear.hc.com


mailto:Joshua.Kessler%40HarperCollins.com?subject=Request%3A%20Desk%20Copy

mailto:Anna.Goolsby%40HarperCollins.com?subject=Request%3A%20Desk%20Copy

mailto:marketing%40hbgusa.com?subject=Request%3A%20Desk%20Copy%20

http://www.harpercollins.ca/


Australia, New Zealand, India, and the United KingdomIf you are an instructor teaching in Australia, New Zealand, India, or the United Kingdom, contact the appropriate HarperCollins company:

HarperCollins Australia: http://www.harpercollins.com.au/HarperCollins New Zealand: http://www.harpercollins.co.nz/HarperCollins India: http://www.harpercollins.co.in/HarperCollins United Kingdom: http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/

Other RegionsPlease write on your school letterhead and send your desk copy request to:

HarperCollins PublishersMail Order Department1000 Keystone Industrial ParkScranton, PA 18512 U.S.A.

Please write on your school letterhead and fax your request to 1.570.941.1599.

Examination Copies

United StatesExamination copies are provided for instructors who are considering a HarperCollins title for their course. Paperback examination copies may be purchased with a 50% discount—plus sales tax. There is a limit of four titles per instructor per year. Hardcover examination copies are available at a 20% discount, plus $4.00 postage and handling per order. Examination charges are non-refundable.

Examination charges must be prepaid with a credit card, check, or money order. The 50% discount paperback examination copy and 20% discounted hardcover examination copy offers are only valid in the United States.

To request an examination copy, please call 1.800.331.3761. Customer service hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm EST. Please have your credit card ready.

Examination copies are shipped via UPS care of your institution. Examination copies cannot be sent to residences. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. Prices may change without notice.

Other RegionsPlease see the listing under desk copies and contact the HarperCollins company in your region to obtain their examination copy policy.

HarperCollins Speakers BureauThe HarperCollins Speakers Bureau is your connection to a stellar list of speakers for your campus events. The HarperCollins Speakers Bureau has access to all HarperCollins authors. If you are interested in a speaker listed in this catalog—or any HarperCollins author—please contact us, and we will be happy to locate the speaker of your choice, as well as negotiate and broker the engagement on your behalf.

www.harpercollinsspeakersbureau.com

• Phone: 212.207.7100• Fax: 212.207.7921• Email: [email protected]

OR

DER

ING

INFO

RM

ATIO

N

53

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/

http://www.harpercollins.co.nz/

http://www.harpercollins.co.in/

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/

http://www.harpercollinsspeakersbureau.com

mailto:speakersbureau%40harpercollins.com?subject=

54

OR

DER

ING

INFO

RM

ATIO

N

Bulk SalesWe know there are times when you would like to share a special book with your colleagues and students. For information on multiple-copy orders, please contact our Special Markets Department at 212.207.7945 or send an e-mail to:

[email protected]

PermissionsIf you wish to obtain the necessary permission for photocopying or creating course packets, please contact:

Copyright Clearance Center • www.copyright.com • phone: 978.750.8400 • fax: 978.646.8600

Alternative Formats for Students with DisabilitiesIf you have adopted a title and need to request alternative formats for your students with disabilities, please write to [email protected].

Titles, prices, and other contents of this catalog are subject to change without notice. All orders are subject to acceptance and availability. Prices shown are publisher’s suggested prices; re-sellers are free to charge whatever price they wish for the books in this catalog.


OR

DER

ING

INFO

RM

ATIO

N

54

mailto:Gillian.Wise%40HarperCollins.com?subject=Bulk%20Sales

http://www.copyright.com

mailto:alternative%40harpercollins.com?subject=Request%3A%20Alternative%20Format


5555

NO

TES


56

NO

TES

56

Academ

ic Marketing D

epartment

195 Broadway

New

York NY 10007

HarperFirstYear.hc.com

FREE EXAM COPIES!

See page 53!

2015

2016

Documents

2015 2016 - HarperCollinsfiles.harpercollins.com › HarperAcademic › FirstYearStudent1516.pdfthe wild, on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail leading from Mexico to Canada. In this