Library Guides: Leisure Reading: Common Read

My Beloved World

2017-2018 Common Read My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor book cover

The program is described on the Common Read Blackboard site:

"Queensborough faculty members and their students will read My Beloved World in classes in the Spring 2018 semester. All students will participate in co-curricular activities.

The coming fall marks the centennial celebration of women having the right to vote in New York State. To commemorate this anniversary, the College recently announced a theme for the coming academic year of female empowerment and gender equality. This announcement was coupled with a request to align events and activities throughout the coming academic year with this theme.

For the coming year, the committee has selected My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Justice and third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. You can read more about this text at Penguin Random House. (see below)

For additional information regarding this initiative please contact Dr. Robin Ford, Assistant Professor, English, and Coordinator of the Common Read, at rford@qcc.cuny.edu, or Dr. Henry Davis, Academic Program Specialist at hdavis@qcc.cuny.edu."

Click on the tabs at the top of the page for more help.

Common Read: 2012-2013

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Call Number: Stacks RC265.6 .L24 S55 2011
ISBN: 9781400052189
Publication Date: 2011-03-08
Now an HBO#65533; Film starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells--taken without her knowledge in 1951--became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medici≠ of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.

Common Read: 2013-2014

The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam; Nicholas D. Kristof (Foreword by); Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Introduction by)
Call Number: Stacks HQ242.3 .A5 M3613 2009
ISBN: 9780385526227
Publication Date: 2009-07-28
A riveting and beautiful memoir of tragedy and hope–by a woman named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world Born in a village deep in the Cambodian forest, Somaly Mam was sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather when she was twelve years old. For the next decade she was shuttled through the brothels that make up the sprawling sex trade of Southeast Asia. She suffered unspeakable acts of brutality and witnessed horrors that would haunt her for the rest of her life–until, in her early twenties, she managed to escape. Unable to forget the girls she left behind, Mam became a tenacious and brave leader in the fight against human trafficking, rescuing sex workers–some as young as five and six–offering them shelter, rehabilitation, healing, and love and leading them into new life. Written in exquisite, spare, unflinching prose, The Road of Lost Innocence is a memoir that will leave you awestruck by the courage and strength of this extraordinary woman and will renew your faith in the power of an individual to bring about change.

Common Read : 2015-2016

Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino; Ronald Cotton; Erin Torneo; Jennife Thompson-Cannino
Call Number: Stacks HV6568 .B87 T56 2009
ISBN: 9780312376536
Publication Date: 2009-03-03
TheNew York Times best selling true story of an unlikely friendship forged between a woman and the man she incorrectly identified as her rapist and sent to prison for 11 years. Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed. Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives. WithPicking Cotton, Jennifer and Ronald tell in their own words the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness.

Common Read - 2012

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Call Number: Stacks PS3562 .E353 T6 1982a
ISBN: 9780446310789
Publication Date: 2010-04-01
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.