Past First Year Books
The UMD community has been reading together since 1993. Each year, the book is chosen by a committee of University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students representing 10+ disciplines.
Smashing Statues
Erin L. Thomson
All We Can Save
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
What the Eyes Don't See
Mona Hanna-Attisha
Weapons of Math Destruction
Cathy O'Neil
Demagoguery and Democracy
Patricia Roberts-Miller
The Refugees
Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017
March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Ayadin, and Nate Powell
2016
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
2015
Head Off and Split by Nikky Finney
2014
Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos
2013
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver
2012
The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone
2011
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2010
Half of the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
2009
What is the What by Dave Eggers
2008
War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges
2007
The Ravaging Tide by Mike Tidwell
2006
The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
2005
Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams
2004
The Stakes: America in the Middle by Shibley Telhami
2003
Dean Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean
2002
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman
2001
Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton
2000
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
1999
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
1998
The Control of Nature by John McPhee
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
1997
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
1996
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan P. Lightman
1995
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1994
The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
1993
Lincoln on Gettysburg by Gary Willis
We appreciate everyone who joined our conversations with 2023 First Year Book Author Erin Thompson and Community Activist Devon Henry. Special thanks to co-sponosors: The Office of Diversity and Inclusion and The 1856 Project.
