ISSUED: 17 February 2017
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Voting is now open for Shepherd University’s 2017-2018 Common Reading book. Five semifinalist books have been chosen by the Common Reading selection committee and voting is open until March 31 to all students, faculty, staff, and community members. The winning book will be announced on April 3 and will serve as the 2017-2018 Common Reading.
The five semifinalist books are:
- “Make Your Home Among Strangers” by Jennine Capo Crucet, a novel about the daughter of Cuban immigrants who is torn between generational, cultural, and political forces as she tries to navigate between life at college and the needs of her family back home.
- “Breaking Night” by Liz Murray, the story of a teenage girl who was living on the streets of New York and who was eventually accepted at Harvard.
- “Becoming Nicole” by Amy Ellis Nutt, the true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and their family’s fight for transgender rights.
- “Dream Land: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic” by Sam Quinones, an exploration of how small-town America became addicted to opioids. The book chronicles the role drug companies, doctors, and heroin dealers from Mexico have had in creating the epidemic.
- “Citizen: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine, a book that recounts acts of everyday racism and their effect in contemporary society.
The goals of the Shepherd University Common Reading program are to provide a shared intellectual experience, create a sense of community, encourage reading, promote critical engagement of ideas, set academic expectations, create dialog between students, faculty, staff and the community, promote interaction between Shepherd University and the community, and introduce students to community resources.
To learn more about these books and cast a vote for the next Common Reading, visit www.shepherd.edu/commonreading.
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