Executive Summary - Beach Books: 2016–2017

Article
May 24, 2017

Main author: David Randall, NAS Director of Communications.

Assigning a summer reading to entering freshmen is a growing trend at hundreds of American colleges and universities. This report by the National Association of Scholars provides an account of freshman summer reading for the academic years 2016–2017.

While there are several databases of common reading assignments, the annual Beach Books reports by the NAS are the most comprehensive and are the only ones to categorize the books according to their main subjects and track trends in genres, publication dates, and additional themes.

Download the report (pdf): Beach Books 2016–2017: What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class?

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