Looking for new trade books for your coursework, or are thinking of supplementing or replacing your existing textbooks with trade books? Then this blog is for you. Make Me Required Reading offers a running list of what new trade fiction, non-fiction and memoir is being used in the classroom.
Add comment September 23, 2009
Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret MacMillan Picked at James Madison University
Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History by Acclaimed historian and “great storyteller” (The New York Review of Books) has been selected at James Madison University for course Twentieth Century World History.
Read an excerpt at: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679643586&view=excerpt
“Reminds readers that history matters…. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the importance of correctly understanding the past.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“MacMillan deftly maneuvers through time [in this] wide-ranging and provocative testament to transparency as the best historical education.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment November 25, 2009
Now FREE Exam Copy Offer to Professors Make the Impossible Possible Chosen for 2009–2010 Common Freshman Reader at IUP and Winthrop University
NOTE: Now FREE Exam Copy Offer to Professors. Email LELEE@randomhouse.com for a free examination copy.
Bill Strickland’s Make the Impossible Possible: One Man’s Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary has been selected as Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Common Freshman Reader for 2009–2010.
The book was selected by a panel of faculty and staff at IUP. To qualify, a book must relevant to today’s students, offer interdisciplinary appeal, and provide opportunities for additional and diverse programming.
From the Ghetto to Harvard Business School…Make the Impossible Possible is Strickland’s personal story. It has been positively reviewed by many publications, including Publisher’s Weekly, which says: “It’s the American dream with a twist: for Strickland, it was never about shedding his past and getting ahead but about following his bliss and making a difference.”
Strickland is president and CEO, Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, and Bidwell Training Center.
And in the news…. Harvard Business School Selects Bill Strickland and Bidwell Training Center for a Fourth Case Study. Go to
http://www.bill-strickland.org/BeckhamMedia-BillStricklandHarvardCaseStudy.html
Special Note: Award-winning journalist María Hinojosa interviews America’s foremost artists, writers, activists, and civic leaders in the new fourth season of María Hinojosa: One-on-One. Bill Strickland interview airs in January, nationwide. Link to interview: http://wwe.wgbh.org/programs/programDetail.cfm?programid=12
For more information on the book or author, including an author video, visit
http://www.bill-strickland.org/
http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Professors/Teachers: For a limited time, email Lelee@randomhouse.com for a free examination copy.
Add comment November 8, 2009
Free Advance Reader’s Copy: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
LAST CALL FOR FREE ADVANCE READER’S COPY FOR PROFESSORS.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is forthcoming February 2010. For a limited time 
FREE Advance Reader’s Copy Available for Professors and Teachers. To request a free copy, email rhacademic@randomhouse.com with your name, college address and department name.
**Book is being used in several classes at Sweet Briar College in Virginia in the Spring 2010 semester
In 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, stricken with cervical cancer, became an involuntary donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were propagated by scientist George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. These cells are now known worldwide as HeLa. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot brilliantly weaves together the Lacks’s story–past and present–with the story of the birth of bioethics, the story of HeLa cells, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans. Important, powerful, and compassionate, this is a remarkable work of science and social journalism.
“The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks is an ideal book for classroom discussions in bioethics, history of science, and science journalism. Author Rebecca Skloot does an exceptional job of raising critical issues that should encourage both scholars and students to reevaluate the research decision making process, the way research subjects are treated, and the balance of power in this country as determined by race, economics, and even education. An incredibly readable and smart text that should be a part of countless university discussions. — Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, and Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“A rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society’s most vulnerable people.”– Publishers Weekly, starred review (For the complete Publishers Weekly review, go to: http://rebeccaskloot.com/?p=394)
For Publishers Weekly article and book excerpt , go to:
www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6705892.html
“Deftly weaving together history, journalism and biography, Rebecca Skloot’s sensitive account tells of the enduring, deeply personal sacrifice of this African American woman and her family…A stunning illustration of how race, gender and disease intersect to produce a unique form of social vulnerability, this is a poignant, necessary, and brilliant book.”—Alondra Nelson, associate professor of sociology, Columbia University
Science journalist and author Rebecca Skloot will be the “Lunch With an Author” session at the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) conference on Saturday, March 6, 2010 and also “Author Meets the Critics” session on Saturday, March 6, 2010, 4-5:30pm. For more details, visit the APPE website at http://www.indiana.edu/~appe
Author website: rebeccaskloot.com/
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
For Booklist’s Story Behind the Story: Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks go to: http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=3886330
Add comment November 3, 2009
Another Book Adoption for Tracy Kidder’s Acclaimed Mountains Beyond Mountains
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, a perennial favorite book used in colleges and common reading programs, has recently been selected at Cornell University, along with more than 100 other colleges and high schools since its publication. This compelling and inspiring book shows how one person can work wonders. In Mountains Beyond Mountains, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man, Dr. Paul Farmer, who loves the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it. “Mountains Beyond Mountains unfolds with a force of gathering revelation,” says Annie Dillard, and Jonathan Harr notes, “[Paul Farmer] wants to change the world. Certainly this luminous and powerful book will change the way you see it.”
“[A] masterpiece . . . an astonishing book that will leave you questioning your own life and political views . . . Kidder opens a window into Farmer’s soul, letting the reader peek in and see what truly makes the good doctor tick.”—USA Today
To read an excerpt, go to: http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812973013&view=excerpt
Strength In What Remains is Tracy Kidder’s newest book. To watch the book’s trailer, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcAQFNLacfw
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart or www.tracykidder.com/
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 25, 2009
In Fed We Trust Shortlisted for Business Book of the Year–Now FREE Exam Copy Offer to Professors
In Fed We Trust shortlisted for Business Book of the Year
To honor the shortlisting, we are offering a FREE BOOK for examination to Professors now for a limited time. Email lelee@randomhouse.com for a copy.
David Wessel’s In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic is among six finalists for FT/Goldman Sachs 2009 Business Book of the Year.
This is a breathtaking and singularly perceptive look at a historic episode in American and global economic history.
Texas State University’s McCoy College of Business will be using In Fed We Trust in its Eco 3311 – Money and Banking course this fall.
“Wessel delivers an engrossing account of Bernanke’s improvisational responses to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.”—Fortune Magazine
Website: www.infedwetrust.com/
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 23, 2009
Blindspot: A Novel by Two Acclaimed Historians, Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore, Chosen at Oregon State University
Oregon State University’s History Dept will be using Blindspot: A Novel by two acclaimed historians, Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore, for its course on “The Historian’s Craft” this fall.
Blindspot is a novel of painting, passion, and politics in
the age of the American Revolution. Written with wit
and exuberance by longtime friends and accomplished
historians, the novel is at once fiction and history, mystery and love story, tragedy and farce. Set in the boisterous, rebellious Boston of 1764, Blindspot is filled with the bawdy, satirical sensibility of the eighteenth century.
Jane Kamensky is a professor of American history and chair of the History Department at Brandeis University.
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she is the chair of the History and Literature Program.
Author Website: http://www.blindspotthenovel.com/
For more information on the book and the authors, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Read an excerpt here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385526197&view=excerpt
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 22, 2009
Concise History of the Catholic Church Selected at Providence College
Providence College’s Development of Western Civilization Program will be using Thomas Bokenkotter’s essential one-volume history of the Catholic Church.
Covering the life of Christ, the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and everything in between, A Concise History of the Catholic Church has been one of the bestselling religious histories of the past two decades and a mainstay for scholars, students, and others looking for a definitive, accessible history of Catholicism.
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 15, 2009
Iowa State University’s Dept. of Art and Design will be using Art Theory For Beginners
Iowa State University’s Dept of Art and Design will be using Art Theory For Beginners this fall for its Introduction to Visual Culture Studies course.
From Paleolithic cave-painting to postmodernism, Art Theory For Beginners is a concise and entertaining survey of the major historical and current debates on art. Painters, theorists and philosophers are all included to show how the idea of art has developed over the last 5,000 years.
For more titles in the FOR BEGINNERS series go to: www.steerforth.com/forbeginners/
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 14, 2009
Boston College’s Sociology Dept is Using The Translator as a Primer for its course named “African World Perspective” this fall
Boston College’s Sociology Dept is using The Translator: A Memoir for its course named “African World Perspective” this fall. In 2003, Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman in northern Darfur, fled his village, which was under attack by Sudanese militiamen. Here is Daoud’s harrowing and life-changing, eyewitness account of the brutal genocide in the Sudan.
Zine Magubane, Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston College says “I chose this book because The Translator offers American students a superb opportunity to hear about the realities of the Darfur situation through the voice of an African person. The book is both an excellent primer on the political situation in Darfur and a deeply moving personal story that gives students a sophisticated, yet accessible, view into the Darfur conflict.”
We are pleased to say The Translator is also a book pick by Colorado Mountain College and Mars Hill College for First-Year Experience.
Website: www.SaveDarfur.org
For more information on the book and the author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Read an excerpt here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812979176&view=excerpt
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 9, 2009
