Three Books
Stanford’s Three Books program, one of the signature elements of New Student Orientation (NSO), has transitioned into the COLLEGE curriculum, with one book each quarter being integrated into the COLLEGE courses offered that quarter. The books and their accompanying events remain open to all undergraduate first-year and transfer students, as well as those who choose to enroll in the COLLEGE courses to which a book is assigned.
Three Books 2025-2026
Autumn
Selfless: The Social Creation of "You," by Stanford social psychologist and Graduate School of Business professor Brian Lowery, is assigned to the fall COLLEGE course Why College? Your Education and the Good Life. In Selfless, Lowery argues there is no essential "self"—our selves are social creations of those with whom we interact —exploring what that means for who we can be and who we allow others to be.
Lowery will be in conversation with Robert M. Sapolsky, Stanford professor of biology, about his recent book Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will, which Autumn quarter first-years will also read. In this book, Sapolsky disputes the idea that there is a separate self who tells our biology what to do.
Winter
In Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, Lea Ypi combines personal memoir and the tumultuous history of Albania's transition from socialism to capitalism. Students in Citizenship in the 21st Century can engage with it as an example of the ways citizens experience changing political systems.
Spring
Luke Kemp's Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse analyzes why large, hierarchical societies ("Goliaths") collapse, drawing on historical case studies from the Bronze Age to the modern era. Kemp argues that these societies, built on inequality and domination, contain the seeds of their own destruction, and that modern global collapse could be long-lasting and severe. Some of the spring quarter Global Perspectives courses will be reading excerpt from this book.
Three Books Archive
Curious to know what books we've hosted in previous years? Check out our Three Books Archive for a list of all past books and their authors!
Three Books is made possible by the generosity of The Lamsam-Sagan Family Endowed Fund for Undergraduate Education.