January 25, 2018

Empty Hands, A Memoir

By Sister Abega Ntleko. Read about it on Amazon.

January 25, 2018

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

By Matthew Desmond. Read about it on Amazon.

January 25, 2018

The Underground Girls of Kabul

By Jenny Nordberg. Read about it on Amazon.

January 25, 2018

It Takes a School

By Jonathan Starr. Read about it on Amazon.

January 25, 2018

Uncommon Type: Some Stories

By Tom Hanks. Read about it on Amazon.

The purpose of this blog is to enable people to provide comments on books being considered by the selection committee. You can also see the comments of the selection committee members. State what you like and dislike about the books listed and whether you think it would be appropriate as the campus reading book and why. Please consult and use the established criteria for the CRP selection (See the list of bulletpoints.)

Thank you.

Caution: There are spoilers in the comments to the posts.

SELECTION CRITERIA:

• Must be well written and engaging
• Must offer topics and themes conducive to stimulating thoughtful discussion, calling for critical thinking about ideas, issues, practices, values, traditions, relationships, or beliefs
• Must speak in a meaningful manner to our target audience (the entire campus community, but also newly entering freshmen we wish to win over to participating in and supporting a culture of reading)
• Must provide connecting opportunities for cross- and interdisciplinary corollary lectures, activities, presentations, and/or performances to encourage integration across wide and diverse sections of the SJSU community (and perhaps into a range of different class assignment possibilities)
• Must have received some critical praise or acclaim, with some evidence of popularity or the potential for popularity
• Must be published within the last five years
• Must be available in paperback by the time book orders for Summer Orientation sessions are due
• Must not be made into a film before or during the year of its selection
• Must not exceed 300 pages
• Might speak to a significant “hot topic” current social issue, might have a special or particular tie to our campus history or local city and area culture and history
( Note—on issues such as date of publication or page length, if the selection is extremely strong in other areas and gets very positive support from a majority of the committee, these criteria can be waived.)

SJSU Campus Reading Program Committee Book Selection

San Jose State University

Empty Hands, A Memoir

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

The Underground Girls of Kabul

It Takes a School

Uncommon Type: Some Stories