Fall 2011 Common Reading Program

For the 2025 Common Reading Experience, the University of Mississippi selected the travel memoir Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton.

Since the program began in 2011, the Common Reading Experience has aimed to build community and foster academic discussion among first-year Ole Miss students. This year’s selection of Leave Only Footprints is not only a fun and engaging read but also contains Knighton’s unique insights on heartbreak, exploration, and self-reflection as can only be experienced while immersed in the varied, unforgiving expanse of America’s wilderness.

Especially notable for its vivid imagery and skillful blending of our country’s past and present, Leave Only Footprints details Knighton’s ambitious project of visiting fifty-nine national parks in fifty-two weeks and provides a contemporary perspective on the value and fragility of our most treasured natural sites.

Each year, incoming students are given a copy of the selected Common Read book to finish before the beginning of their first fall semester, and instructors from the departments of Writing and Rhetoric, First-year Experience, and others incorporate the text into their course curriculum. The author of the book also speaks at the Freshman Convocation, held at the beginning of the academic year to welcome students as they begin their college career at Ole Miss.

A call for Common Read suggestions is open to the University community yearly, and the Common Reading Experience Book Selection Committee chooses a title based on literary value, accessibility, and applicability across various disciplines among other considerations. Since the program’s conception, fifteen books, including Leave Only Footprints, have served as the Common Read selection. Copies of each book can be found in the Department of Archives and Special Collections, located on the third floor of the J. D. Williams Library.

The J.D. Williams Library also participates in the Common Reading Experience by assembling exhibits that showcase the current year’s selection. Created by library faculty and staff, these exhibits combine visual and textual elements to engage visitors while providing supplementary information for the book, such as relevant historical and cultural context (timelines, maps, related publications, etc.), author biographies, and more.

The exhibit for Leave Only Footprints is currently on display on the second floor of the J.D. Williams Library until the end of October. To view past Common Reading Experience exhibits, visit the exhibit archive on eGrove: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/exhibit/exhibits/um-common-reading-experience/.

By Lauren Long, Library Specialist I at J.D. Williams Library