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Make your first Skidmore connection through a shared book

Each year, Skidmore College sends first-year students a summer reading selection that opens a campuswide conversation before classes begin. The book introduces a timely subject, gives the class a shared point of connection, and reminds us that learning can begin anywhere.

The selection is announced in late May or early June. Most students receive a copy by mail in late June. Opportunity Program and international students receive their copies when they arrive on campus.

Who is Government book cover on a white desk with a keyboard, coffee, and plants.

Who Is Government?

Edited by Michael Lewis, “Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service” asks who does the work of government and why it matters. Through stories by Lewis, Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, the book highlights public servants whose often unseen work shapes daily life. Part civics lesson, part collection of human stories, it invites first-year students to consider service, responsibility, expertise, and the public good.

Meet two people behind the book

Geraldine Brooks, author of “The Cyber Sleuth,” and Jarod Koopman, the public servant featured in the essay, will visit campus Monday, Sept. 28, for a keynote event.

Students line up to get autographs from author Hua Hsu during his talk for the Summer Reading program.

Why summer reading?

The summer reading gives your class a common question to discuss before and after you arrive. Hear the First-Year Experience director and a peer mentor explain how the Class of 2030 selection becomes part of your first weeks at Skidmore.

Watch the video
Author Hua Hsu sits across from students conducting an intimate conversation for the summer reading program

Stay True

The Class of 2029 began its Skidmore experience with “Stay True,” Hua Hsu’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir about friendship, belonging, grief, and self-discovery. Hsu later joined the class on campus to continue the conversation.
Read about Hsu's visit
Suleika Jaouad speaks on stage to an audience sitting next with two Skidmore faculty members

Between Two Kingdoms

The Class of 2028 read “Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted,” Suleika Jaouad’s exploration of illness, uncertainty, resilience, and connection. Jaouad later visited Skidmore for a conversation with students.
Read about Jaouad's visit

Past Summer Reading titles

  • Class of 2029: Stay True by Hua Hsu  
  • Class of 2028: Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
  • Class of 2027: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Class of 2026: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
  • Class of 2025: How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  • Class of 2024: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
  • Class of 2023: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World—and Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and Ola Rosling
  • Class of 2022: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
  • Class of 2021: The Book That Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation by Randall Fuller
  • Class of 2020: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Class of 2019: Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
  • Class of 2018: What Money Can't Buy by Michael Sandel
  • Class of 2017: The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
  • Class of 2016: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
  • Class of 2015: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
  • Class of 2014: Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
  • Class of 2013: Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World by Eric Foner
  • Class of 2012: A Tale of God's Will: A Requiem for Katrina soundtrack by Terence Blanchard
  • Class of 2011: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
  • Class of 2010: Life on the Color Line by Gregory H. Williams
  • Class of 2009: The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney

Many thanks to the Skidmore Office of Special Programs and the McCormack Artist-Scholar Residency Fund for their support of the summer reading program.

 

Contact FYE

Office

Starbuck Center 201
518-580-5070
fye@skidmore.edu

Director

Rachel Roe-Dale
Professor of Mathematics
rroedale@skidmore.edu

Team

Marla Melito, Associate Director
mmelito@skidmore.edu

Christy Brown, Coordinator 
christybrown@skidmore.edu