Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Matt EmersonMarch 23, 2015

One of the practices that many schools adopt to engage students and faculty over the summer is to select a book that the entire community will read.

LMU's "Common Book" program, for example, is "designed to unite the LMU community in a common intellectual endeavor that goes beyond the classroom." LMU's Common Book for 2015 is Southland, by Nina Revoyr.

For the 2013-2014 year, Seattle University chose Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. 

What have you read, of late, that you recommend as a "common read" for a high school or college community? What subjects or themes need to be included in a conversation that connects the whole community? 

I would choose a book that speaks to the issues and concerns connected to and with the widespread use of social media, especially as it relates to the blurring of the line between what occurs on and an off campus. I know that sounds deeply unoriginal, but I find that too many students and especially parents remain unaware of how the constant pull of Twitter and other sites and apps faciliate the perpetuation of false identities and harmful choices. Do any readers have a good recommendation?

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Joseph J Dunn
10 years ago
New forms of social media certainly promote communication that is faster and, as you indicate, more shallow than older forms. But for a great perspective on the current challenges, I would recommend Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion." Written almost a century ago, it speaks well to our current problem. It should work well at college level or for college-bound high school students.
James Wermers
10 years ago
There are so many great books to anchor a common read, but a place to start might be the collected stories of J.F. Powers.

The latest from america

The U.S.C.C.B. said it would not renew its cooperative agreements with the federal government related to children’s services and refugee support after its longstanding partnerships with the government in those areas became “untenable.”
A Ukrainian soldier helps a wounded comrade on the road in reclaimed territory in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on Sept. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Kostiantyn Liberov, File)
To Andriy Zelinskyy, S.J., “Victory is creating a society where a person feels their freedom and dignity, and where a human being remains a human being.”
Marc Roscoe LoustauApril 07, 2025
Returning to “Preach” for the second time this Lent, Professor Johnson joins host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to discuss the Passion narratives in both Luke and John, heard during the principal liturgies of Holy Week.
PreachApril 07, 2025
An Oklahoma man charged Friday with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a Catholic priest wrote letters to a newspaper railing against the Catholic Church reforms of Vatican II and referring to a “strange new version of ‘Catholicism.’”