On My Bookshelf: Associate Professor Meira Levinson

Currently reading: Truthfully, primarily The New Yorker, as I seem to find time these days only for reading short pieces. Oh yes, and Paddington Bear and The Watsons Go To Birmingham — 1963 with my children (ages 6 and 9). On the grown-up books front, however, I'm currently immersed in The Imperative of Integration by Elizabeth Anderson.

The thing that drew you to it: I'm personally and professionally interested in the topic [integration]. Also, Anderson is one of the few political philosophers who try to integrate serious social science data into their work; since this is something I try to do as well, I wanted to learn from her approach.

Noneducation genre of choice: Novels. Ideally complex, layered, and somewhat self-referential, but not radically post-modern. I'm a sucker for narrative.

Last great read: We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March, by my mother, Cynthia Levinson. It's a dramatic and absorbing account of four of the children — the youngest was nine years old — who marched and were jailed for freedom.

I am ashamed to admit, I have never read… James Joyce's Ulysses.

Favorite spot to curl up with a good book: I remember I used to do that, in the mists of time before having kids! I suppose anywhere quiet — and far away from a computer. How you find the time: I stay up too late.

Next up: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.