Every year, the AU Department of Literature and the College Writing Program select a book, called the “community text,” for all of AU’s incoming freshmen to read prior to arriving on campus in the fall. For 2011, students will read The Good Soldiers by David Finkel.
As a special treat, on September 7, 2011, all incoming Honors freshmen are invited to a special conversation with the community text author in Mary Graydon Center Rooms 1-6 from 3:30-5 p.m., preceding the "Writer as Witness" Colloquium event at 7 p.m. in Bender Arena.
At the "Writer as Witness" Afternoon Conversation event, Honors students will have the opportunity to engage with the writer through discussion and, as part of the event, the author will be available to sign students' copies of the book.
Previous Writer as Witness events have featured these books and authors:
- 2010: The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson
- 2009: True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo
- 2008: The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
- 2007: The Ponds of Kalambayi by Mike Tidwell
- 2006: Love in the Driest Season by Neely Tucker
- 2005: Fragments of Grace by Pamela Constable
- 2004: Newjack by Ted Conover
- 2003: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung
- 2002: Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
- 2001: Bad Land by Jonathan Raban
- 2000: Almost a Woman by Esmeralda Santiago
- 1999: My Own Country by Abraham Verghese
- 1998: There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz
