Community members have until Sept. 30 to nominate books for the University of Idaho’s 2024-25 Common Read program.

Those suggestions will be considered by the university’s Common Read Committee, which selects a book “that seeks to create a common intellectual discussion over a shared text between UI students and employees across the state, as well as Moscow residents,” according to a UI news release.

Books that address contemporary issues, can be used in a wide range of courses and are accessible to students of various reading levels will be given preference.

The Common Read book is assigned to first-year students in their writing composition courses and may be included in other general education course curriculum.

“We look for books that open our ways of thinking and seeing, that challenge our knowledge and thought processes, and that increase our knowledge and understanding,” Common Read Committee chairperson and general education director Dean Panttaja said.

Suggestions should be sent to panttaja@uidaho.edu and include title, author, area of focus (such as racism, immigration or resilience) and a brief statement about how it meets the selection committee’s criteria.

The program, entering its 16th year, has included such books as Tara Westover’s “Educated; A Memoir” in 2018; Tommy Orange’s “There, There” in 2019; Cristina Henriquez’s “The Book of Unknown Americans” in 2020; and “Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance,” by Angela Duckworth, in 2021.

A talk by Florence Williams, author of the University of Idaho’s 2023-24 Common Read, “The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and more Creative,” is set for 7 p.m. Oct. 17, in the International Ballroom of the Pitman Center, 709 Deakin Ave., Moscow.