Choosing an FYE or Common Read Book: University Picks for 2025–2026

First-Year Experience (FYE) and campus common read programs do more than assign a book. They create a shared starting point. When an entire college or university reads the same title, it sparks conversation across classrooms, residence halls, and campus events, helping students feel connected to each other and to the ideas a school cares about most.

This year’s selections show how wide-ranging (and strategic) common reads can be, supporting everything from dialogue and belonging to sustainability, public health, and perspective-taking. Campuses across the country are choosing books that are discussion-ready, cross-disciplinary, and easy to build into orientation, first-year seminars, and community programming.

And if you’re thinking, “Is it already time to pick next year’s book?”, yes. Common read planning tends to start earlier than people expect, especially when you’re coordinating ordering, summer reading timelines, author events, and campus-wide engagement. With that in mind, let’s meet this past year’s campus picks and the creative ways schools are turning a single book into a shared experience.

University of Colorado Anschutz: Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

CU Anschutz’s One Book One Campus (OBOC) is built as a shared reading experience that “sparks conversation about health, humanity, and collaboration,” bringing the campus together around one book to “inspire dialogue across disciplines” and deepen understanding of health.

For 2025/2026, they selected Everything is Tuberculosis because tuberculosis “remains one of the world’s most persistent health challenges,” intersecting “medicine, public health, and social justice.” The narrative invites readers to explore the science, stigma, and global impact of TB and reflect on how interprofessional collaboration can drive solutions.

This pick is naturally interdisciplinary, connecting health sciences with ethics, equity, and real-world systems, making it easy to adopt across programs and departments. It’s also discussion-forward: the themes of science, stigma, and global impact give campuses strong, accessible pathways for facilitated conversations and community learning. 

NYU: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

NYU Reads brings the NYU community together around a single common reading, chosen by a university committee of faculty, students, and administrators. Building on undergraduate first-year reading programs, NYU Reads extends the conversation beyond NYU Welcome and opens it up to the entire university community. 

For Fall 2025, NYU selected Orbital for its ability to prompt reflection and shared perspective: the novel follows astronauts and cosmonauts circling Earth, inviting readers to consider how distance and speed can shift our understanding of place, culture, time, and even “memory, or love.” NYU describes it as “a call to step back, take perspective, and achieve deeper understanding,” helping us see our lives, and our “orbits”, anew.

This title works especially well on campuses because it’s inherently discussion-forward and cross-disciplinary: it can anchor conversations in humanities, science, global studies, ethics, and environmental thinking while still feeling intimate and accessible through its focus on observation and reflection. It’s the kind of book that creates a shared language for community dialogue.

East Tennessee State University: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

ETSU’s Common Read is designed as a catalyst for “connection, conversation, and community learning,” selecting one campus-wide book each academic year for the community to read and discuss. This year’s selection is also closely tied to ETSU’s Festival of Ideas, a platform that brings thought leaders across disciplines to campus and encourages meaningful dialogue and intellectual exchange. The Anthropocene Reviewed is being paired with a major campus moment where John Green will serve as the keynote speaker.

This pick works especially well for colleges and universities because it invites reflective, discussion-friendly engagement with “the world we’ve made,” making it easy to activate across disciplines and co-curricular spaces. ETSU is already modeling that with programming like a student reflective writing project and skill-building events inspired by the book (from storytelling to creative projects), which other campuses can easily adapt.

Crafton Hills College: The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory by Thomas Fuller

Crafton Hills College’s One Book/One College is a campus-wide reading initiative designed to bring students, faculty, staff, and administrators together through a shared book experience, specifically one “focused on equity and inclusion.

They selected The Boys of Riverside because it offers a powerful lens on identity and inclusion through the true story of the California School for the Deaf, Riverside football team. The college highlights how the book captures the team’s historic seasons while centering resilience, “identity,” and “teamwork,” and exploring the human experience through a community many readers may not know well.

This title works especially well on campuses because it’s both highly readable and discussion-forward, opening pathways into conversations about disability culture, belonging, and perseverance, while aligning naturally with equity and inclusion outcomes. 

Cal Poly Pomona: I Never Thought of It That Way by Mónica Guzmán

Cal Poly Pomona selected Mónica Guzmán’s I Never Thought of It That Way as its 2025–26 Common Read, a shared reading experience embedded in First Year Experience (FYE) courses to help students engage in meaningful campus-wide dialogue. The university describes the book as “a toolkit and guide for navigating difficult conversations,” centered on how “curiosity can bridge our most painful divides.” Cal Poly Pomona also emphasizes its practical value for students learning to listen well, understand where others are coming from, and connect across differences.

This pick works especially well on campuses because it’s skill-based and discussion-ready, ideal for first-year transitions and classroom-to-community programming. Cal Poly Pomona is reinforcing that with built-in engagement like a writing contest, and FYE projects that culminate in student showcases, an approach other schools can easily adapt for seminars, residence life dialogue, and reflective writing.

University of Wisconsin–Madison: James by Percival Everett

UW–Madison’s Go Big Read is a campus-wide shared reading experience that invites students, faculty, staff, and the broader community to engage with one book through classroom connections and public events. The program is designed to spark conversation and learning across disciplines. This past year, UW selected James, Everett’s retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective, centering his “strength, intelligence, and compassion” while revisiting familiar events with sharp humor and powerful insight.

This title works especially well on campuses because it’s both highly readable and deeply discussion-forward, opening pathways into literature, history, ethics, and contemporary conversations about voice and perspective. UW–Madison is amplifying that impact with signature programming, including a fall author visit/keynote and broad distribution to first-year students through new-student programming.

University of South Alabama: Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl

The University of South Alabama selected Late Migrations as its 2025–26 Common Read/Common World title, inviting the campus to gather around a shared story that connects place, people, and the natural world. They chose Margaret Renkl’s collection of essays because it’s “a memoir of family, identity, and the relationship to the natural environment,” exploring “the beauty and power of the natural environment of Alabama” alongside Renkl’s family and upbringing.

This pick works especially well on campuses because it’s approachable (short essays) and flexible across disciplines, supporting everything from First-Year Experience and general education courses to major-specific conversations. USA highlights that it opens a myriad of opportunities for campus engagement, particularly through activities tied to nature and the environment on campus and in the local community.

  

BookPal helps colleges and universities bring common reads and FYE programs to life, without the logistics headache. From single-title campus shipments to curated book bundles for cohorts, classes, and learning communities, we make it easy to get the right books to the right places with flexible shipping options that fit your timeline (and your students). We support schools nationwide every year, partnering with program leaders to streamline ordering, coordinate delivery, and keep large-scale distributions running smoothly. If you’re ready to start planning your next common read, request a quote to connect with one of our book experts. Here’s to another year of amazing reads!