Program History
The KU Common Book program began in the fall of 2012. From 2012 to 2019, the program was focused on first-year student engagement and administered by the Office of First-Year Experience. The program went on hiatus in 2020 and returned in the fall of 2021 with an expanded purpose to engage all levels of students at KU. This expanded engagement included an expanded program coordination that includes the KU Libraries, the Hall Center for the Humanities, and the Division of Academic Success. The program’s success depends on many collaborative partners across campus.
In 2024, the program was relaunched as KU Reads: A Common Book Experience with a renewed focus on integration into the KU Core 34 general education curriculum, and expanded campus partnerships. KU Reads continues to be administered by the KU Libraries, the Hall Center for the Humanities, and Academic Affairs.
Previous Selections
- 2012-2013 - Notes from No Man's Land by Eula Biss
- 2013-2014 - The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
- 2014-2015 - The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty
- 2015-2016 - A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
- 2016-2017 - Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- 2017-2018 - Citizen by Claudia Rankin
- 2018-2019 - Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat
- 2019-2020 - Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation edited by John Freeman
- 2021-2022 - Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- 2022-2023 - Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong
- 2023-2024 - Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler