SHU Reads!
2026 Book: Amplify: How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action and Build a Better World by Adam Met, Ph.D., with Heather Landy
Adam Met, climate advocate, educator and member of the multiplatinum band AJR, gained firsthand experience growing an audience from the ground up as the band progressed from playing in living rooms to selling out arenas. With award-winning journalist Heather Landy, Met shows how to apply fan-building strategies to social movements in exciting, inventive ways. Amplify is a playbook for developing passionate supporters (i.e., fans) utilizing the art and science of engagement, collaboration and authentic connection, with tactics that will inspire people to carry your message to the world and spur others to act.
SHU Reads! Common Reading Experience
Students at Seton Hall University begin their common learning experience in the summer before their first year. Since 2003, all incoming first-year students have read a common book over the summer to introduce them to academic and student life at Seton Hall. The SHU Reads! nominated text presents a shared experience intended to foster thoughtful discussion and engagement in University Life, the first-year English classes and throughout the academic year.
Previous Selections:
- 2025: The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- 2024: I Never Thought of it That Way by Monica Guzman
- 2023: American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures edited by America Ferrera
- 2021 & 2022: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
- 2020: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
- 2019: Educated by Tara Westover
- 2018: Coming of Age at the End Of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a Changed Planet by Julie Dunlap and Susan Cohen
- 2017: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
- 2016: The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
- 2015: The Ledge by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan
- 2014: Radium Girls by D.W. Gregory
- 2013: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
- 2012: This I Believe
- 2011: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Jennifer Skloot
2026 SHUReads! Essay Contest/Core English I Book Review Prompt
Essay Prompt: In a textual analysis of Amplify, expand on the diagnostic essay you wrote about storytelling and its effects on mobilizing people (see below for a reminder of that assignment). From that essay (or not), which you could think of as pre-writing for the textual analysis assignment, choose a cause or issue that you feel strongly about and that you would consider advocating for (or have advocated for) at some point in your life. Using the suggestions that Met makes throughout Amplify, chart a course for how you might organize this advocacy.
Think About: In the process of that analysis, critique whether Met’s ideas – or those of some of the different public figures he highlights – are actually helpful for this task. In what ways does the model work or make sense for your issue or cause? In what ways is the model lacking? In what ways does the model ask too much? Use examples from the book and from the advocacy plan that you developed – and your own experiences – as evidence of your critique.
Suggestions for Approaching the Essay: In short, write a 3-5 page advocacy plan/book review addressing the way Met’s model for engagement can work and/or might not work
for your project. It should end with a recommendation to an identified audience who
would be interested in your analysis. You can recommend the book, or you can choose
to say you do not recommend it – or somewhere in between. In the paper, you will need
to refer to specific quotes, paraphrases, or summaries of the book, and thus you must
include in-text citations and a Work Cited page. For your thinking, you can also recall and reference the diagnostic essay you wrote
at the beginning of the semester.
If you have any questions, please be sure to check with your instructor (especially
regarding how to submit the essay for class); or, please contact Kelly Shea, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor of English/Director of First-Year Writing and SHUReads! committee
member, [email protected] (especially regarding how to submit the essay for the SHUReads! essay contest).
If the essay is being submitted for the SHUReads! Essay Contest, the submission deadline is Friday, November 6, 2026.