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K-State Today

November 5, 2019

Help the K-State Book Network select the Common Reading Book for 2020

Submitted by Karin Westman

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We started with "The Hunger Games" in 2010, we learned about "The Other Wes Moore" in 2015, and we met "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" in 2019: What will be the common read in 2020?

K-State Book Network, or KSBN, the all-university reading program, selects a common book for the academic year and coordinates classroom and campus activities to correspond with the reading. As part of K-State First, KSBN provides incoming students with a shared academic experience that they can discuss with professors, staff, administrators, and other students when they arrive on campus.

The 2020 KSBN Book Selection Committee — comprised of 49 students, staff, administrators, and faculty from two campuses — spent the last six months reading more than 30 books on the theme of "STEM Stories": books that share the untold stories and/or underrepresented people in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The committee has narrowed the list down to three finalists:

  • "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer.
  • "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race" by Margot Lee Shetterly.
  • "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women" by Kate Moore.

We would like your help selecting the 2020 university common book.

Visit the KSBN webpage to read about these three finalists that have been chosen for consideration and offer your feedback by Sunday, Nov. 17.

The Book Selection Committee looks forward to your response!

For more information about KSBN, including a list of past book selections, visit the KSBN homepage. For more information about K-State First, the university's first-year experience program, visit the K-State First homepage.