A collage of book covers

Common Read

The annual Common Read is designed to give students new to Mount Holyoke College their first intellectual dialogue based on a shared text. New students start to explore the selected text during Orientation and continue the discussion into their fall classes and throughout the year.

Open to the entire College community to read and discuss 鈥 staff on campus and alum groups across the country discuss the book 鈥 the Common Read sets the tone and frame discussions for the upcoming academic year.

Current and prospective students, faculty, staff, alums and trustees are invited to participate.

Campus Voices

The Common Read experience

Happening at 果冻传媒

The Common Read in the news

Mount Holyoke College alum Earl Wren 鈥24 is the recipient of the AHEAD Student Recognition Award for their work amplifying student-led networks of accessibility and disability support and providing critical feedback to the Disability Services office.

Marcella Runell, vice president of student life and dean of students at 果冻传媒 College, spoke to The Boston Globe about fostering the skill of having difficult conversations.

Mount Holyoke College鈥檚 2024 Common Read is 鈥淚 Never Thought of It That Way,鈥 a timely personal guide to the front lines of a crisis that threatens America 鈥 broken conversations among confounded people.

Common Read selections

Year Author Title
2023 Written by people with disabilities and edited by disabled activist and writer Alice Wong Disability Visibility
2022 Robin Wall Kimmerer 鈥淏raiding Sweetgrass
2021 Jesmyn Ward 鈥淭he Fire This Time鈥  |  鈥
2020 The New York Times Magazine  鈥淭he 1619 Project
2019 Tommy Orange "There, There"
2018 Cristina Henriquez The Book of Unknown Americans
2017 Claudia Rankine Citizen: An American Lyric
2016 Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me
2015 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Americanah
2014 Piper Kerman 鈥淥range is the New Black鈥
2013 Junot D铆az 鈥淭he Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao鈥
2012 Jhumpa Lahiri 鈥淭he Namesake鈥
2011 Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn 鈥淗alf the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide鈥
2010 List of readings
2009 Anne Fadiman 鈥淭he Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures鈥
2008 Danzy Senna 鈥淐补耻蝉补蝉颈补鈥
2007 Elizabeth Kolbert 鈥淔ield Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change鈥
2006 Tracy Kidder 鈥淢ountains Beyond Mountains鈥
2005 Ruth L. Ozeki 鈥淢y Year of Meats鈥
2004 Azar Nafisi 鈥淩eading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books鈥
2003 Barbara Kingsolver 鈥淭he Poisonwood Bible鈥
2002 Barbara Ehrenreich 鈥淣ickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America鈥
2001 Julia Alvarez 鈥淗ow the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents鈥

 

2000 Terry Tempest Williams 鈥淩efuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place鈥