The Common Reading Program is an established start-of-school tradition at SMU. The incoming class receives the book during the summer at AARO and reads it before arriving for the start of the fall semester. First-year writing courses use the book as part of the curriculum for the fall semester.
Here you will find information on some of our past Common Readings.
2018 Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
2017 Evicted by Matthew Desmond
2016 Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
2015 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2014 We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
2013 The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
2012 The Big Short by Michael Lewis
2011 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2010 Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
2009 Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama
2008 The Devil’s Highway by Luís Alberto Urrea
2007 How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
2006 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
2005 Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America
2004 Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business