Common Reading

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During the summer, all new students are required to read this year's selected common reading book as part of their First Year Experience at Gallaudet. The University community will also be reading the book. The New Student Convocation during NSO will address this common reading which will tie in with a series of events being planned throughout the year, including a day with the author. This is an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to interact and share the common reading experience. Please take the time to purchase the book, read it, and bring it with you to campus. We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming reading events. 

The selected book for this year is:

• 2007
  Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America 
  by Firoozeh Dumas

The books used in the past years were:

• 2006
  Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America 
  by Firoozeh Dumas

• 2005
  Real College
  by Elizabeth Tippett and Douglas Stone

• 2004
  The Pact
  by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt

• 2003
  Tuesdays with Morrie 
  by Mitch Albom

• 2002
  The Color of Water
  by James McBride

Students interested in the Honors Program have additional Honors summer reading that relates to one or two courses taken the first year.  The author(s) of the book(s) required also are invited to campus to present to the campus community and meet in a special seminar with Honors students. Previous required readings have been:

• 2007
  Journey of Man 
  by Spencer Wells

  Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World (paperback)
  by Michael Chorost

• 2006

  Guns, Germs, and Steel 
  by Jared Diamond

  Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human 

  by Michael Chorost

• 2005
  The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle
  The Created Self: Reinventing Body, Persona, and Spirit
  by Robert Weber

• 2004
  Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
  A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

• 2003
  COD: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
  by Mark Kurlansky

• 2002
  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire