On My Bookshelf: Associate Professor Andrew Ho

Currently reading: I am currently rotating through about 10 different children's books with my 22-month-old daughter. Her favorites are I Took the Moon for a Walk, a beautifully illustrated goodnight story by Carolyn Curtis and Alison Jay; Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny, the 2004 Caldecott Honor winner; and Julia Donaldson's Zog, a modern take on dragons and princesses by a Scottish author. On my literal bookshelf, Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto has been on my checklist, but I haven't checked it off yet.

The thing that drew you to them: I always thought I'd be able to entertain my daughter with all the books I read when I was a kid, but after revisiting them, I've found many of them to be excessively old-fashioned, particularly in their display of gender roles. So I've been looking for children's stories with strong female characters.

First impressions: First? I must have read each of them hundreds of times.

Favorite book from childhood: I'm still partial to Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. My daughter can't read it yet but likes to tear the pages.

Noneducation genre of choice: I read thousands of words a week on grantland.com, a sports and pop culture website that features long-form essays in particular. From time to time they revisit great sports essays from years past, like David Foster Wallace's classic 2006 piece on Roger Federer, and reflect on them. More generally, grantland.com is a way for me to keep up with television, movies, sports, and pop culture without actually spending the time to watch.

How you find the time: I'm one of those annoying people who is always reading from his iPhone while walking down the street. I have good peripheral vision and haven't run into anybody or injured myself yet. Knock on wood.