Guides: The Great Summer Read-Off: What is the Great Summer Read-Off?

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting our guide to the 2025 Great Summer Read-Off! On this page you will find information on how to participate and win prizes by reading books from Payson Library! This event officially begins Tuesday, May 6th and ends on Friday, July 25th.

Interested in staying up to date on the challenge? Sign up here!

If you have any questions about this challenge please contact Nick D'Andrea (nicholas.dandrea@pepperdine.edu) or Gabrielle Riter (gabrielle.riter@pepperdine.edu) at any time.

Happy reading!

How do I participate?

All current students, staff, and faculty are eligible to participate. Below are the steps to do it!

Step 1: Get a print book (sorry, no ebooks!) from Payson Library
Step 2: Read the book
Step 3: Submit your information and a short review of the book here!

How do I get a book?

All books are located on the first floor of Payson Library. It is called Main Stacks.

1. Go to the Pepperdine Libraries website.

2. In the search bar, type in any word or the title. If you know the author, type "au: (author name)".

3. On the left-hand side, under "Held by Library", click "Payson Library". Under "Format", click "Print Book". This will limit your search to print books in Payson Library.

4. Each book entry will include the Title, Authors, and Availability indicated by a green check. The location is set to Payson Library, MAIN STACKS, with the Call Number.

5. You can write down or photograph the call number to find the book yourself, or place a hold and library staff will locate it and put it on the hold shelf at Payson. You'll receive an email when it's ready for pickup.

Does the person who reads the most books win?

We actually have multiple ways participants can win prizes! The main way will be through reading and reviewing books. Participants can win prizes in the following categories:

Most books read
Most pages read
Most diverse reading list (based off the call numbers on the book)

Additionally, by attending our in-person events in June or July, you will automatically enter into a raffle and will receive tickets for each book you've read by that point. The winners will be announced during the events.

There will be events?

Yes! There will be 3 in person events associated with the Great Summer Read-Off.

On Tuesday, May 6th, from 11am to 1pm, we hosted an open house inside the Kresge Room to guide participants to their first book, go over tips in navigating the library website, tour the different sections in Payson, and answer any questions people may have.

We will host two in-person, lunch time events for participants to get together and chat about what they're reading. Those will be held on June 11th and July 10th and attendees will be automatically entered into a raffle.

Do you have any book recommendations?

Of course we do! Check out some of our recommended reads for the summer below:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Call Number: PR9199.4.S727 S73 2014
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
What Is Extinction? by Joshua Schuster
Call Number: QH78 .S38 2023
Life on Earth is facing a mass extinction event of our own making. Human activity is changing the biology and the meaning of extinction. What Is Extinction? examines several key moments that have come to define the terms of extinction over the past two centuries, exploring instances of animal and human finitude and the cultural forms used to document and interpret these events.
Flight by Sherman Alexie
Call Number: PS3551.L35774 F57 2007
Flight follows a troubled foster teenager--a boy who is not a "legal" Indian because he was never claimed by his father. The journey begins as he's about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time to resurface in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era, where he sees why "Hell is Red River, Idaho, in the 1970s." Red River is only the first stop in an eye-opening trip through moments in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these furious travels through time, his refrain grows: "Who's to judge?" and "I don't understand humans."
Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage that Shook Europe by John Guy; Julia Fox
Call Number: DA333.B6 G89 2023
Based on new research, this history of Henry VIII's courtship, short union, and brutal execution of Anne Boleyn provides dispels previously held myths about Boleyn's role in the marriage.Henry VIII's obsessive desire for Anne Boleyn changed him-- and his country-- forever.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Call Number: PR6005.H66 A84
ISBN: 9780312330873
Considered one of the greatest mysteries of all times, ten strangers, each with a dark secret, are gathered together on an isolated island by a mysterious host. One by one, they die, and before the weekend is out, there will be none.
Revolutionary Summer by Joseph J. Ellis
Call Number: E208 .E48 2013
In a brilliant and seamless narrative, Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this propitious moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain’s Admiral Lord Richard and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.
Kokoro (True Heart) by Velina Hasu Houston
Call Number: PS3558.O8733 K66 2011
Yasako, a young Japanese mother, struggles to adapt to the very foreign culture of the United States. Feeling hopeless after discovering her husband's infidelity, Yasako feels that oyako shinju, or parent-child suicide, is her only honorable escape from a world that does not accept her. Yasako truly believes that the outcome to such an act is not the finality of death but a chance for herself and her daughter to reunite with their family on a spiritual plane of existence. But Yasako survives the suicide attempt, and she learns that she is being tried for the murder of her daughter.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Call Number: PR6045.A97 B7 1999
Waugh tells the story of the Marchmain family. Aristocratic, beautiful and charming, the Marchmains are indeed a symbol of England and her decline in this novel of the upper class of the 1920s and the abdication of responsibility in the 1930s.
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Call Number: PS3566.E6912 M68 1998
Winner of the 1962 National Book Award and one of Time magazine's 100 Best English-Language Novels, Walker Percy's debut The Moviegoer is an American masterpiece and a classic of Southern literature. Insightful, romantic, and humorous, it is the story of a young man's search for meaning amid a shallow consumerist landscape.