Each summer the ORI committee selects the book for the coming academic year's reading initiative. Past selections are listed below.
2022–2026
Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us by Dr. Brian Klaas
Dig by A.S. King
2017–2021
Shrill by Lindy West
Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
What the Eyes Don't See by Mona Hanna-Attisha
There There by Tommy Orange
Knitting the Fog by Claudia D. Hernández
2012–2016
City of Thieves by David Benioff
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
We Are Completely Beside Ourself by Karen Joy Fowler
Outcasts United by Warren St. John
2007–2011
Bombingham by Anthony Grooms
Field Notes by Elizabeth Kolbert
Persepolis by Marjane Satapi
The Learners by Chip Kidd
Bonobo Handshake by Vanessa Woods
2002–2006
Haven by Ruth Gruber
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder