Life of the Mind
Freshman Reading Program

Reading together helps bring us together at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

By reading the year’s Life of the Mind selection you will arrive on campus having shared an experience with your fellow freshmen. During Welcome Week you’ll get a feel for college life as you join classmates and professors to discuss the book in small group settings. This experience will help you establish your identity as a UT Volunteer and develop a network of friends within the larger campus community.

In short, Life of the Mind gives you a first chance to experience college as a member of the University of Tennessee family.

This experience will continue throughout the year as exhibits, lectures and movies will explore themes raised in this year’s Life of the Mind selection. In addition, several freshmen courses will use the book in class—so you can expect coursework that incorporates the book’s topic and themes.

Life of the Mind is your first assignment as a student at the University of Tennessee, and as such you should approach the program seriously, with a willingness to study the book on your own and then join in — and learn from — discussions with others.

Through reading together we gather together to learn and pursue the life of the mind at Tennessee. Reading builds community. Reading builds the University of Tennessee Class of 2013.

The 2009 Life of the Mind book selection is Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle. It has been described as “nothing short of spectacular.” This award-winning bestseller models for us how a person can overcome almost unbelievable obstacles to survive and to succeed. Wall’s story addresses in particular the issue of poverty and its effect on children. Walls will be visiting the campus in the fall, and the theme of poverty will be the focus of a year-long series of university programming and events.

For further information about the author, her book, and the issues presented in The Glass Castle, please visit the University Libraries' Life of the Mind page.

How does the Life of the Mind program work?

1. Purchase your copy of The Glass Castle: A Memoir at the University Bookstore during Summer Orientation or through your local or online bookseller. The University Bookstore and some online booksellers offer it at a discount.

2. Read the book prior to coming to campus for Welcome Week. Take notes on ideas or questions you may have. Write a one-page response to the book to bring to your discussion group, making two copies of that response. Writers of the ten papers judged the best by discussion leaders will be invited to a private luncheon with the Chancellor.

3. You will be contacted this summer via your UT email account about registering for your discussion group.  Bring your copy of the book and one copy of your response paper to your discussion group, and join other new students and a UT faculty member in exploring themes, issues, and ideas presented in the book. You will need the second copy of your written response for your first English composition or honors class meeting.

Throughout the academic year, the University Libraries will host special exhibits and events related to the Life of the Mind book program. Details will be posted during the summer and fall on the Library's Life of the Mind web page.

As you are given additional Life of the Mind activities and assignments, you will find many more books and articles on the themes found in The Glass Castle by exploring the University Libraries collections.

Visit your University Libraries!

This year's selection:
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls

 

“Sharing incredible, painful experiences in no-nonsense prose, Walls has, as The New York Times Book Review notes, ‘succeeded in doing what most writers set out to do—to write the kind of book they themselves most want to read.’” —Bookmarks Magazine

“Just read the first pages of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and I defy you not to go on. It's funny and sad and quirky and loving. I was incredibly touched by it.” —Dominick Dunne, author of The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper

“Jeannette Walls has carved a story with precision and grace out of one of the most chaotic, heartbreaking childhoods ever to be set down on the page. This deeply affecting memoir is a triumph in every possible way, and it does what all good books should: it affirms our faith in the human spirit.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Family History