Community Reading Program
Across the nation, colleges and universities have embraced community reading programs for first-year students. The goal of community reading programs is to build university-wide community through a shared intellectual engagement experience. Georgia Southern’s Community Reading Program aims to
- bring together students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds to build a community of learners through a shared experience;
- help students make connections between curricular and co-curricular experiences;
- and stimulate critical thinking while enriching classroom discussion.
This book will help to introduce students to First-Year Seminar student learning outcomes, and provide students opportunities to relate concepts to their own experiences. The First and Second Year Steering Committee, made up of faculty, staff, and students, worked with the campus community to select this year’s community read.
We are excited to announce that Georgia Southern University’s 2021-2022 Community Read will be Born A Crime by Trevor Noah. The committee saw this as a great fit for our institution, and Noah’s book has met with great success at more than 20 other universities from Syracuse to North Carolina State.
About the author
Trevor Noah is the most successful comedian in Africa and is the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show on Comedy Central. This year The Daily Show has been nominated for three Emmys, including Outstanding Variety Talk Series. Noah joined The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in 2014 as a contributor.
Born in South Africa to a black South African mother and a white European father, Noah has hosted numerous television shows including South Africa’s music, television and film awards, and two seasons of his own late night talk show, Tonight with Trevor Noah.
In November 2016, Trevor released his first book Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, which was an instant New York Times bestseller. Additionally, his performance on the Born a Crime audiobook was Audible’s highest rated audiobook of 2016, and has remained one of the top selling titles on Audible since its release. It was also nominated for two NAACP Image Awards, one for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author and another for Outstanding Literary Work in the Biography/Auto-Biography category.
The book is collection of personal stories about growing up in South Africa during the last gasps of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that came with its demise. Already known for his incisive social and political commentary, here Noah turns his focus inward, giving readers an intimate look at the world that shaped him. These are true stories, sometimes dark, occasionally bizarre, frequently tender, and always hilarious. Whether subsisting on caterpillars during months of extreme poverty or making comically hapless attempts at teenage romance, from the time he was thrown in jail to the time he was thrown from a speeding car driven by murderous gangsters, the experiences covered in this book will shock and amaze, even as they leave you rolling on the floor with laughter.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: the compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New York Times • USA Today • San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • Esquire • Newsday • Booklist
Last updated: 1/11/2022