The purpose of the Griz Read is to provide new students with a common connection through a thought-provoking book. Each year, a committee of faculty, staff, and students select a book from nominations submitted by the campus community.

All members of the campus community, especially first-year students, are encouraged to read the book and participate in Griz Read events.

We believe that books forge powerful bonds and we are excited to begin the campus discussion this year!

Griz Read 2022

Good Citizens Need Not Fear is a funny, sharp collection of linked stories that are centered around a crumbling apartment building in Ukraine both before and immediately after the fall of the U.S.S.R. This timely book was hailed as a "best Fiction of the Year" by The Guardian, and was selected for this year's Griz Read First Year Reading Experience. Reva was born in Ukraine and currently lives in Canada, where she is also a librettist.

Griz Read Events

Author Lecture

Maria Reva will deliver a lecture to UM audiences at 7 p.m. October 11, 2022 in the UC Ballroom.

The Author

Maria Reva writes fiction and opera libretti. She is the author of Good Citizens Need Not Fear (Doubleday, Virago, and Knopf Canada New Face of Fiction, 2020), set in an apartment block in Ukraine.

Maria’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She won a National Magazine Award in 2019 and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada 2020 Fiction Prize.