“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Uncomfortable.

Some Kansas University students will undoubtedly feel that way reading next year’s KU Common Book, and that’s on purpose, says Howard Graham, associate director for academic programs in the Office of First Year Experience.

In light of the past year’s conversations and protests about race and inclusion on campus, “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates “fits us right now,” Graham said.

“It’s going to be a book that challenges notions of fairness and equitable treatment,” he said. “It’s going to help illustrate why one person’s reality might be different from another person’s reality, but that those realities do not cancel each other out.”

KU’s Office of First Year Experience announced its 2016-2017 KU Common Book selection on Tuesday, after the usual lengthy process of nominations, committee discussions and recommendations.

In the spirit of a universitywide shared experience, incoming freshmen and transfer students each receive copies of the book at orientation along with a reader’s guide. Beginning in the fall, the book will be the subject of a series of programs, and will also be used in some classes.

“Between the World and Me” and its author are highly acclaimed — the 2015 National Book Award for nonfiction and The New York Times list of best books of 2015 are among its accolades — so the quality of writing is universally recognized, Graham said. He said the subject matter should be fitting for students and faculty at KU.

“Drawing from personal lived experience, Coates shares his early college days, the struggle to connect academic learning to the broader world and a quest for safety in a time of uncertainty,” according to a description in KU’s announcement. “A modern coming-of-age story, ‘Between the World and Me’ offers insight on community expectations and global learning as a young man discovers the injustice surrounding him.”

Clarence Lang, associate professor and chairman of KU’s Department of African and African-American Studies called the book a “powerful reflection of the times.”

“It offers a critical black perspective that is also deeply intimate,” Lang said, in a KU news release. “He is clearly inspired by ‘The Souls of Black Folks’ by W.E.B. Du Bois and James Baldwin’s ‘The Fire Next Time,’ yet the book rings with an immediacy that I hope will attract KU students, especially millennials.”

Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He studied at Howard University and Middlebury College, and later was a visiting professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and City University of New York.

This is the fifth year for the KU Common Book program. The 2015-2016 selected title was Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms.”

“The Common Book program has always enabled our community to address challenging topics, and this year’s selection is no exception,” KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said in KU’s news release. “The selection of ‘Between the World and Me’ as the KU Common Book is a timely and appropriate one in the context of the ongoing conversation about diversity and equality across the nation and on our campuses.”

KU has not yet announced whether Coates will visit campus, though living authors of previous KU Common Books have done so. A lineup of 2016-2017 Common Book events is expected to be released later and posted online at firstyear.ku.edu.