Educators: Free Advanced Reader Copies of Five Days at Memorial by Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Sheri Fink Now Available

In Five Days at Memorial, author Sheri Fink reconstructs five days at Memorial Medical Center following Hurricane Katrina and draws students into the lives of those who struggled to survive and to maintain life amidst chaos.  Written in the tradition of other powerful narrative nonfiction titles such as Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains and Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, investigates the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing students into a conversation about the consequences and ethics of health care rationing.  Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared Americans are for the impact of large-scale disasters.

How Shared Reading of a “Post-9/11 Novel” and an Author Visit Helped One School Heal

New York Times writer Joel Lovell has written a thoughtful piece on Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin (Random House), which won the National Book Award, and a new novel, Transatlantic (Random House, June 2013).  Titled “Colum McCann’s Radical Empathy,” the profile is set in the recent aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy as McCann travels to the afflicted school to speak to the high school students upon a teacher’s request.   It delves into the value of Let the Great World Spin (which was added to the Newtown high school curriculum) as a transcendent history that can ease the pains of tragedy, “a book that,” Newtown teacher Lee Keylock says, “might help their students begin to make sense of their terrible shock and grief.”  From there, the article moves into McCann’s own life, crossing briefly into McCann’s childhood in Ireland, to his desire as a writer to work in “the blurred spaces between fiction and nonfiction.” Granting insight into McCann’s humor, gravity, and ambition, the piece permits a glimpse into the life of the man who writes, while “‘in the cupboard,'” about the magnitude of the world.

Colum McCann will be speaking at the 2014 First-Year Experience® Conference in San Diego, California.

Click here to read the full New York Times article

Click here for more information about Colum McCann

Click here for information about the author’s speaking engagements

Create Healthy Habits with a Handy Flowchart

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit (Random House, 2012), has developed a handy flowchart demonstrating how one can form healthy habits.  Duhigg’s diagram indicates that the first step to creating a habit is developing a cue to start a certain behavior, followed by a reward for that act.  By putting these together, a routine is formed that drives habit development.

The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg’s debut, takes students to the forefront of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed.  The book has already been adopted for Common Reading at Babson College.

Click here to view Charles Duhigg’s flowchart on how to create healthy habits.

Click here to view Charles Duhigg’s talk at the 2013 First-Year Experience® conference.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Click here for more about this book.

Click here to order a desk or examination copy.

View Author Videos Now: the First-Year Experience® 2013 Conference

Random House hosted two author events at the recent First-Year Experience® 2013 Conference in Orlando, Florida from February 23-26.  Video from the event is now posted to the Common Reads YouTube channel.  For your convenience, individual author videos are below:

COCKTAILS & CONVERSATIONS
Sunday, February 24^th, 6:30pm-7:30pm

FEATURING:

*CHARLES DUHIGG, author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

*BEN CASNOCHA, co-author of The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

NINTH ANNUAL RANDOM HOUSE AUTHOR LUNCHEON
Monday, February 25^th, 11:45am-1:30pm

FEATURING:

*SUSAN CAIN, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

*DONOVAN CAMPBELL, author of The Leader’s Code:  Mission, Character, Service, and Getting the Job Done

*ERNEST CLINE, author of Ready Player One: A Novel

*KRISTEN IVERSEN, author of Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats

*JERRY MCGILL, author of Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me

PRESENTED TITLES:

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Read Sonia Nazario’s NYT Piece on Plight of Immigrant Children

In today’s New York Times (4/12/13) author Sonia Nazario contributed an op-ed which passionately argues against the injustices that immigrant children in America face.  Her piece builds upon themes she developed in her 2007 book Enrique’s Journey, an astonishing true story that recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.  The book that has been chosen for common reading at numerous colleges and universities including Valparaiso University, the University of Missouri and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Click here to read Sonia Nazario’s article in the New York Times.

Below is a running list of all of the colleges, high schools and libraries that have selected Enrique’s Journey for common reading.

Louisburg College’s My Orange Duffel Bag Project

This week, author Sam Bracken was featured as the opening speaker at Louisburg College’s kickoff celebration for the school’s 225th anniversary week.  My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change was selected as the college’s common reading title, and author Sam Bracken went to visit the campus to share his story with faculty and students.

Faculty at Louisburg College have developed engaging assignments related to the book for their Crossroads Program, a program designed to get first-year students to explore not only how they learn, but also how they live their lives. Below is a sampling of assignments connected to the “My Orange Duffel Bag Project”:

1. Decorate the Cover! Be creative. Decorate the cover of the notebook any way that you would like – it just needs to be decorate. You can draw, paint, cover, or do anything you think will make it look cool and look like you!
2. First 10 Pages – these pages will serve as journal pages. Each class you will be given a topic to journal on and have some time to do this at the beginning of each class.
3. Next 10 Pages – these pages are “YOU” pages. You should include anything that is important to you

Which Common Reading Book Best Suits You?

Common Reads has just launched our new book personality quiz! Does your school or library have a common reading program? Take this fun, interactive, and free quiz to find out which book best fits your community.

Click here to take the quiz and find out “Which Common Reading Book Best Suits You.” We’d love to have you share your results and let us know what you think of your match!

• Special launch offer: Common Reads is offering a limited-time FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY to the first five people to comment here on this blog post and include:

1. The book title you were matched with
2. What you think of your match and/or how you might incorporate the themes of the book to your common reading program
3. E-mail your street address for shipping to: rhacademic@randomhouse.com

The first five individuals to respond will receive a confirmation email and a free copy of the book they were matched with through the quiz. Full rules of the giveaway are provided below.

Random House FYE® 2012 Author Luncheon Videos & Photos Now Available

Video from the Eighth Annual Random House First-Year Experience Author Luncheon event is now up on YouTube. We hope you enjoy them and share them with your colleagues!

You may visit our YouTube page to browse all of the videos. For your convenience, we’ve also listed the links to the individual author talks (in speaking order) and the Author Q+A below:

• Sam Bracken, MY ORANGE DUFFEL BAG
• Peter Buffett, LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT
• Elizabeth Moon, THE SPEED OF DARK
• Darin Strauss, HALF A LIFE
• Blake Mycoskie, START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS
• Author Q&A

Be sure to also check out the photos from our luncheon as well on Common Reads Facebook and Flickr accounts!

New 2011 Freshman Year Reading Catalog Available

We’re very excited to share with you our new-and-improved 2011 Freshman Year Reading Catalog! Feel free to click on either the cover image or the link above to view the full PDF version (to view on Scribd, click here).

In it you’ll find our recommended common reading titles fresh for this year. Keep an eye out for our “Key Facts” box, something new we’ve added to this year’s catalog. This information section highlights important points about featured text – making it easier for you to learn all you need to know about a particular book or author, including but not limited to: which schools have previously selected the book, the book’s key themes, and the author’s availability for campus visits. Basically, our new “Key Facts” addition will make your life easier.

You’ll also find included in this year’s catalog a special two page “Best Practices” spread which is linked here as well. Be sure to check it out as it’s full of tips and ideas for all common reading programs (click here to view on Scribd).

Enjoy!

Chronicle of Higher Ed reports on campus friendship trends. What do you think?

In an article just published on the Chronicle of Higher Education website, Facebook weighs in on friendship trends on college campuses. Travis Kaya reports, “College freshmen are more likely to make friends with peers they share a dorm room or major with than they are to befriend those from similar racial backgrounds, a study on the Facebook profiles of first-year students found.”

The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles and a paper on the study will be published next week in The American Journal of Sociology.

Read the entire article,  “What Facebook Tells Researchers About Friendship and Race”

Comment below and let us know what you think of the article. How does common reading foster and influence friendship among your students and community members?