{"id":31897,"date":"2025-03-17T19:19:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T19:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/?p=31897---5fa147e1-3763-479e-ba47-858df5971a9c"},"modified":"2026-10-01T21:02:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T21:02:29","slug":"the-most-popular-college-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/the-most-popular-college-books\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most-Popular College Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cCollege: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So <a href=\"http:\/\/sigliopress.com\/book\/diary-how-to-improve-the-world\/#:~:text=A%2520repository%2520of%2520observations%252C%2520anecdotes,world%2520we%2520live%2520in%2520now.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote John Cage<\/a>, composer, teacher, and lifelong student. And he had a point. If everybody in your class reads the same book, what hope is there of a chance encounter between two random texts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to the <a href=\"https:\/\/opensyllabus.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Open Syllabus Project<\/a>, you can now access the reading lists of more than 2,500 colleges around the country. Whatever subject you\u2019re studying, it is now easy to diversify your reading without straying from reputable sources. Or, if you can\u2019t enroll in college right now, create your own reading list for a bit of home-schooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Degree Query was curious what the landscape of American college books looks like. What are the texts that are informing tomorrow\u2019s society? We used Open Syllabus to identify the most commonly assigned college books in every state, overall, and in five core subjects: Political Science, Business, Computer Science, Economics, and (of course) English Literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also compared Ivy League reading lists to those of America\u2019s top public schools. And finally, we analyzed the gender diversity of the books in our study. Don\u2019t forget to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/prospero\/2020\/03\/23\/bookshoporg-wants-to-take-on-amazon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">shop indie<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Key Findings<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The most commonly assigned college book in the US is <strong>Frankenstein<\/strong> by <strong>Mary Shelley<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Thomas Hobbes\u2019 Leviathan<\/strong> is the most-assigned book in <strong>Ivy League colleges<\/strong>, appearing in <strong>209 syllabi<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>William Strunk\u2019s The Elements of Style<\/strong> is the most-assigned book at <strong>America\u2019s top public schools<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The most-assigned <strong>work of literature<\/strong> in American colleges is <strong>Story of an Hour <\/strong>by<strong> Kate Chopin<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Of the 100 most-assigned books in US colleges, <strong>78<\/strong> had <strong>male authors<\/strong>, <strong>20<\/strong> had <strong>female<\/strong>, and <strong>two<\/strong> had <strong>mixed authors<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Most Commonly Assigned Books in US Colleges, Mapped<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Everybody gotta write in college, so it\u2019s no surprise that many of the most-assigned books in the US are writer\u2019s handbooks. Diana Hacker\u2019s <em>A Writer&#8217;s Reference<\/em> and <em>A Pocket Style Manual<\/em> appear frequently across the map; the former is assigned across 1,734 courses in Alabama alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1792\" src=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31899\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books-201x300.png 201w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books-686x1024.png 686w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books-768x1147.png 768w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01_American-Syllabus_Maps_College-Books-1029x1536.png 1029w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><strong>Click on the image to see the map in full size<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book with the biggest punch, though, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macmillanlearning.com\/college\/us\/product\/The-American-Promise-Volume-1\/p\/1319208894\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The American Promise: A History of the United States<\/a>. It appears on 3,273 syllabi in Texas, making it the book with the most assignations in any one state. The book is particularly beloved of political and social history students, for whom the generous helping of illustrations and first-person testimony brings the story of America to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What are the Most-Popular College Books in 5 Different Fields of Study?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, we broke down our study by subject. <strong>Click the arrow to scroll between maps<\/strong> of the most-assigned books in Political Science, Business, Computer Science, Economics, and English Lit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:100%;width:794px;height:0;padding-bottom:150%;position:relative;overflow:hidden\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"american-syllabus-gallery-1\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0\" src=\"\/\/embed.neomam.com\/american-syllabus\/gallery-1.html#slide-1\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"1180px\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might expect political science texts to be divided along political lines, but tomes such as <a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/30347\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order<\/a> are popular in both red and blue states. Indeed, one criticism of the book (levied by the likes of Chomsky and Said) is that the book\u2019s argument is weighted towards the maintenance of an American hegemonic monoculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Frankenstein<\/em> roams from east coast to west on literature syllabi. In fact, Mary Shelley\u2019s seminal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/lit\/frankenstein\/genre\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">science-fiction horror<\/a> is the most-assigned book in our whole study, appearing on upwards of 5,000 courses. And <a href=\"http:\/\/classics.mit.edu\/Sophocles\/oedipus.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Oedipus Rex<\/a> may be the oldest book to be widely studied in the States: Sophocles wrote the play nearly two-and-a-half millennia ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Ivy League Students Are Reading That You Aren&#8217;t<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a distinctly literary edge to public school book recommendations next to the social, political, and economic books that top the Ivy League chart. But both groups are clearly fixed on studying human nature. Thomas Hobbes\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.college.columbia.edu\/core\/content\/leviathan\/context\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">legendary societal critique<\/a> is number one for Ivy League schools, and Joseph Conrad\u2019s take on the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-conrads-imperial-horror-story-heart-of-darkness-resonates-with-our-globalised-times-94723\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">imperialist mindset<\/a> is the most-assigned unique title for top public schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/02_American-Syllabus_Charts_Most-Assigned-Books.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1534\" src=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/02_American-Syllabus_Charts_Most-Assigned-Books.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31910\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/02_American-Syllabus_Charts_Most-Assigned-Books.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/02_American-Syllabus_Charts_Most-Assigned-Books-235x300.png 235w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/02_American-Syllabus_Charts_Most-Assigned-Books-801x1024.png 801w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/02_American-Syllabus_Charts_Most-Assigned-Books-768x982.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><strong>Click on the image to see the chart in full size<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps more notable are the books that overlap. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2018\/apr\/22\/why-the-communist-manifesto-and-marx-are-still-relevant-today\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Marx\u2019s manifesto<\/a> and Hardin\u2019s <em>Tragedy of the Commons<\/em> go to battle over the socio-economic responsibilities of the state and of the individual. As time goes by, these classic texts take on fresh meaning in new contexts without ever offering easy answers. But thanks to the appearance of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2016\/jul\/04\/100-best-nonfiction-books-all-time-elements-style-william-strunk-eb-white\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Strunk\u2019s classic writing manual<\/a> on both lists, at least the essays will be readable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ivy League and Top Public Colleges Compared: Top Book Recommendations in 5 Key Subjects<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are the top-assigned books across different subjects. <strong>Click the arrow to scroll from discipline to discipline.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:100%;width:794px;height:0;padding-bottom:130%;position:relative;overflow:hidden\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"american-syllabus-gallery-1\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0\" src=\"\/\/embed.neomam.com\/american-syllabus\/gallery-2.html#slide-1\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"1180px\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is notably zero overlap between the books most recommended in English lit, business, and computer science. Each bunch of schools has its preferred writing guide: Strunk for public schools and the more academically oriented <a href=\"https:\/\/geraldgraff.com\/books\/say-say-moves-matter-academic-writing-third-edition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">They Say \/ I Say<\/a> for Ivy Leaguers. The public school list also features <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/books\/making-shapely-fiction\/9780393321241\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a book about writing<\/a>, rather than writing <em>about<\/em>, fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Curiously, there are some exact matches in the priorities of the schools\u2019 economics and political sciences. The two groups both favor <em>Leviathan<\/em> and <em>The Clash of Civilizations<\/em> as essential PS texts, while <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lse.ac.uk\/politicsandpolicy\/adam-smith-and-inequality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Adam Smith<\/a> is a mainstay on economics courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Only 22% of America\u2019s Most-Popular College Books Have A Female Author<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Our final graphic shows the gender breakdown of the 100 most-popular books in American colleges. It is a stark visual. Only <strong>20<\/strong> of the books have a sole <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/4234719\/college-textbooks-female-writers\/\">female author<\/a>, two are mixed, and the remaining <strong>78<\/strong> are written by men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1733\" src=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31911\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books-208x300.png 208w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books-709x1024.png 709w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books-768x1109.png 768w, https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03_American-Syllabus_Author-Diversity-Top-100-Books-1064x1536.png 1064w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><strong>Click on the image to see the chart in full size<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of those 22 with female authors, around a quarter apply to the stereotypically female occupation of nursing. And several are more or less explicitly concerned with feminism, from Wollstonecraft\u2019s proto-feminist Vindication to Harriet Jacobs autobiography of slave life to Gilman\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lonestar.edu\/yellow-wallpaper.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">feminist gothic<\/a>\u2019 short story, <em>The Yellow Wallpaper<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sure, students have plenty of reading to keep them going through the dark months. But nothing expands the mind like an unexpected passage in a privately discovered book. Whether you\u2019re a student looking to boost your official reading list or an autodidact looking for direction, there\u2019s plenty of food for thought in this challenging collection of frequently assigned college books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>METHODOLOGY &amp; SOURCES<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We used the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/opensyllabus.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Open Syllabus Explorer<\/a><\/strong> to find out the most-popular book in every state by field of study and the top 100 most-popular books nationwide.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To determine the most-popular books at Ivy League schools and public schools, we aggregated the ranks of the top 100 books at each Ivy League school and the top 8 schools on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/best-colleges\/rankings\/national-universities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">list of the 2021 Top Public Schools of the U.S. News &amp; World Report<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the full research behind this study, visit <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1Nk5eIiLYrS1yswo2jPUMWQGMV2CHfCyO95MLpJVwLy4\/edit#gid=1701580197\" target=\"_blank\">bit.ly\/AmericanSyllabus.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCollege: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books.\u201d So wrote John Cage, composer, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":31924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mobius_hide_qdf":false,"mobius_hide_el":false,"mobius_limit":"","mobius_degree":"","mobius_category":"","mobius_subject":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Most-Popular College Books - DegreeQuery.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/the-most-popular-college-books\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most-Popular College Books - DegreeQuery.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cCollege: two hundred people reading the same book. 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Two hundred people can read two hundred books.\u201d So wrote John Cage, composer, [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/the-most-popular-college-books\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"DegreeQuery.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-17T19:19:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-01T21:02:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Header_American-Syllabus-v2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"682\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Insights &amp; Data\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Insights &amp; Data\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/the-most-popular-college-books\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.degreequery.com\/the-most-popular-college-books\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Insights &amp; 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