For the eighth year of the Common Read program, incoming first-year and transfer students will join their peers in reading Lab Girl by author and acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren.

The winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, Lab Girl is a memoir that infuses personal narrative with science writing. The story follows Jahren from the North Pole to the tropics of Hawaii as she studies plant life, persists through disappointments, makes friends, starts a family, builds a career and finds joy in learning new things.

> View the Common Read video.
 

Previous Common Read Selections
The Common Read program at UMass Amherst began in 2011. Take a look at previous selections.