The Postmortal Selected as UMO’s 2016-17 Common Read

The Postmortal Selected as UMO’s 2016-17 Common Read

MOUNT OLIVE – After months of meticulously screening over 30 books, The Post Mortal has been designated as the University of Mount Olive freshmen read by the Common Read Selection Committee. The book, written by Drew Magary, will be assigned to students in the ADV 100 class, a semester-long course required for all incoming UMO freshmen.

“The novel they chose for the upcoming freshman class is the first fiction selection that we have chosen in the past four years, and it’s a disturbing and eye-opening tale. Novelist Drew Magary describes a world in which there is a cure for aging,” explained Jackie Hill, chair of the Common Reading Selection Committee and instruction librarian at UMO. “When the book opens, the cure is not legal in the US, but like all panaceas, it is readily available for the right price. As the story unfolds, the cure is legalized in our country and hordes of people take the cure, making them immune to aging, not to dying, but to getting older.”

The Postmortal presents a future in which the population, no longer controlled in part by the death rate, grows larger and larger.  Magary masterfully weaves countless issues for readers to consider into the narrative. Such topics of discussion include length of marriages, retirement age, end of life issues, and decreasing and disappearing resources.

“The common reading experience is an integral part of the freshman seminar class. The book serves as a springboard for discussions on many current and controversial topics, gives the incoming freshmen a shared reading experience, focuses on the importance of reading as part of an academic setting,” noted Hill. “I can guarantee that this book will be thought provoking, timely, and engaging for the upcoming freshmen class.”

Community members, faculty, staff, and students will have a chance to meet the author of The Postmortal during a lecture and book signing scheduled for November 9, at UMO.

The University of Mount Olive is a private institution rooted in the liberal arts tradition with defining Christian values. The University, sponsored by the Convention of Original Free Will Baptists, has locations in Mount Olive, New Bern, Wilmington, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Research Triangle Park, Washington, Jacksonville, and in Smithfield at Johnston Community College.  For more information, visit old.umo.edu.