What's On Your Nightstand?

Jonathan Chenette

Dean of the Faculty

I’ve just embarked on Marilynne Robinson’s novel Home, retelling the events of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead from the perspective of a different character. Robinson reflects on the relationships between an adult sister and brother, an aging father and prodigal son, as well as the tensions between judgment and forgiveness. Still on my nightstand is the book Jeannie and I finished reading aloud two nights ago, Alexander McCall Smith’s The Good Husband of Zebra Drive—from his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. These gentle stories set in Botswana are a wonderful prelude to a night’s contented sleep.

James McCowan ’99

Head Coach, Men’s Cross Country

Prior to the start of the season I was enjoying the fabulously layered prose of Salman Rushdie’s latest, The Enchantress of Florence, yet as the semester starts and the season begins, leisure reading tends to drop off in a big way! During the semester I’m mostly reading and reviewing material related to running as I search out the most recent information I can find related to cross country and track training, however in stiller moments I am making the time for a slow study of Master Sheng-yen’s commentary on The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, an important East Asian Mahayana Buddhist text.

Sarita McCoy Gregory

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Right now, I have a stack beside my bed. I’ve been re-reading everything Obama, from his Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope to a biography by David Mendell on him. I have been working on an article on Obama and find going back to his own words, pre-campaign, to be most enlightening. I have started a much-anticipated book by George Lewis, called A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (2008). It is more than an incredible history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; it is a living document of the politics of the Black Arts movement in Chicago.

Joseph Nevins

Associate Professor of Geography

I recently finished reading Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape. Via accounts of six walks through the West Bank between 1978 and 2006, the book offers a moving exploration of the beauty and power of the physical landscape, and a sobering look at how Israel’s occupation has transformed it in tragic and painful ways so as to deny basic dignity to the Palestinian population. In the end, Shehadeh, a lawyer and human rights activist, leaves the reader with a vision that transcends the seemingly intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Acknowledging the permanence of the land and the transient nature of any human construct, Shehadeh’s vision is one that allows for a peaceful and just coexistence for all who currently reside in, and have claim to, the contested land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

Edward Pittman ’82

Associate Dean of the College

I’m reading Drown by Junot Diaz — also the author of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It’s a collection of ten short stories that captures slices of life in the Dominican Republic and New Jersey. For me, it’s an excellent literary and sociological read. I’d heard of Dí­az but had not read any of his books until he was suggested as a speaker for the Starr Lecturer and Vassar First Year Program. I’m fascinated by his command of language and imagery. Also on my shelf is My Grandfather’s Son, a memoir by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas writes of growing up poor in rural Georgia under his grandfather’s strict parenting; my view of him changed very little, but I now understand more about his journey. Also nearby are The Price of the Ticket, an anthology of James Baldwin’s writings and Pat Conroy’s My Losing Season, a superbly written but different take on love and basketball.

Marianne Begemann ’79

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean of the Faculty

Currently on my bedside table is a collection of four plays by G. Bernard Shaw, of which I am reading The Doctor’s Dilemma. The play is characterized by Shaw’s pointed wit, plot twists, and unique characters, as well a healthy dose of social and political criticism. It is accompanied by a “Preface on Doctors” which begins, “It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity.” He then lays out, quite menacingly, the problems with health care and doctors, including their lack of scientific credibility, and the need for socialized medicine. Politics, social criticism, drama— highly recommended.

Joshua Harmon

Visiting Assistant Professor of English

Along with my English 205 students, I’m reading Zachary Schomburg’s first collection of poems and prose poems, The Man Suit, published last year. I might call these poems stand-up surrealism for their deadpan humor and the askew narratives they relate: nearly everything (log cabins, owls, haircuts, lungs, the Sea of Japan, the Great Lakes, Abraham Lincoln’s assassination) in these unsettling texts is somehow transformed through the sorts of costumes and disguises the book’s title describes. These are poems for people who love poetry as well as for people who think they hate poetry.