International Day of Hope Titles for Higher Education

By Liza Riitters | July 9 2026 | Higher Education

In 2025, the UN formally designated July 12 as the International Day of Hope, dedicated to recognizing hope as a force for individual well-being, community resilience, and collective progress.  The International Day of Hope is an opportunity to reflect on global challenges such as mental health, climate anxiety, conflict, inequality, and social division. Across these themes, hope helps people imagine better futures and work toward them. What conditions allow communities to endure hardship, recover from disruption, and build more just, peaceful, and sustainable futures?

These curated titles below are perfect for classroom discussion and student reflection on hope, resilience, and shared responsibility.

View the full collection here.

9780807092156
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.When Man's Search for Meaning was first published in 1959, it was hailed by Carl Rogers as "one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the last fifty years." Now, more than forty years and 4 million copies later, this tribute to hope in the face of unimaginable loss has emerged as a true classic. Man's Search for Meaning--at once a memoir, a self-help book, and a psychology manual-is the story of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's struggle for survival during his three years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Yet rather than "a tale concerned with the great horrors," Frankl focuses in on the "hard fight for existence" waged by "the great army of unknown and unrecorded." Viktor Frankl's training as a psychiatrist allowed him a remarkable perspective on the psychology of survival. In these inspired pages, he asserts that the "the will to meaning" is the basic motivation for human life. This simple and yet profound statement became the basis of his psychological theory, logotherapy, and forever changed the way we understand our humanity in the face of suffering. As Nietzsche put it, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Frankl's seminal work offers us all an avenue to greater meaning and purpose in our own lives-a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the act of living.
$11.99 US
Apr 23, 2019
Mass Market Paperback
184 Pages
Beacon Press
World except US
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9780807059098
Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi's "attitude of experimenting, of tesing what will and will not bear close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new circumstances,"in order to bring about change in our own lives and communities. All royalties earned on this book are paid to the Navajivan Trust, founded by Gandhi, for use in carrying on his work.
$20.00 US
Nov 01, 1993
Paperback
560 Pages
Beacon Press
US, Opn Mkt (no CAN)

9780593470299
From New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and best-selling author Nicholas D. Kristof, an intimate and gripping memoir about a life in journalism “This is the kind of memoir that changes the world. Read it.”—Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry "Inspiring...May this book be read by every budding journalist, and even experienced ones, and indeed by anyone who hopes for the future of humanity."—Ann Curry, journalist
$20.00 US
Sep 09, 2025
Paperback
480 Pages
Vintage
World

9780593496282
USA TODAY BESTSELLER • The beloved bestselling author of Here for It returns with an all-new collection of heartening, deeply relatable, and laugh-out-loud essays about what happens after happily ever after. "Funny, insightful, and hopeful . . . a profound meditation on what it means to come home, and on finding your way again after the chaos of life takes you off your path."—John Paul Brammer, author of ¡Hola Papi!
$18.00 US
Aug 06, 2024
Paperback
256 Pages
Ballantine Books
US, Canada, Open Mkt

9798217047093
The award-winning environmental journalist’s extraordinary, long-awaited portrait of hope and resilience as we face a fractured and uncertain future
$22.00 US
Apr 22, 2025
Paperback
512 Pages
Dutton
US, Canada, Open Mkt
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9798217089789
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two lifelong peace activists and guides to Israel/Palestine, both of whom have lost family in the conflict, take readers on a revealing life-changing journey across this holy, bloodstained land and discover the mythic, political, and personal history that divides but also binds them and their peoples.“[A] short but immensely poignant account of a shared journey across Israel and the West Bank . . . raw with pain and rage and yet bravely insistent on the imperative of hope.”—The New York Times “We do not see ourselves as Palestinians and Israelis, or as Jews and Arabs, but as human beings who believe in fostering a culture of dialogue, a culture of forgiveness, and a culture of peace. To those who see only division lines, we say: If you must divide us, let it be as those who believe in peace and equality and those who don’t ... yet.” Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli Maoz Inon forged a bond of brotherhood when the world expected them to be enemies. Both have lost family to the conflict. Both have known the bitterness of righteous anger. Yet, they chose a different path.In The Future Is Peace, Sarah and Inon take readers on a transformative weeklong journey across a sacred and bloodstained land. Facing competing narratives, they explore how compassion and unity can pull humanity back from the precipice of blind hatred. Throughout their travels, they have been constantly asked: In the face of so much loss, how can we ever find hope? Their answer is always the same. One cannot find hope. We must create it.This book is a rebuttal to a broken world and a bold challenge to the belief that more violence can ever bring security. Told with unflinching honesty, their story is proof that peace is not a naive dream, but a courageous choice—for reconciliation to heal the wounds of revenge, for partnerships to change a destiny of war, and for empathy to save us from drowning in sorrow.Pairing unapologetic candor and inspirational prose, Sarah and Inon are sending an urgent message that the people have the power to make change. Peace is inevitable. For Palestinians, for Israelis, and for the world that awaits their example, it is not just possible—it is the future.
$22.00 US
Apr 14, 2026
Paperback
240 Pages
Crown
US, Canada, Open Mkt
Export Edition

9780593536131
A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club • With a foreword by David Allen Sibley
$36.00 US
Apr 23, 2024
Hardcover
320 Pages
Knopf
US, Canada, Open Mkt