“What they’re reading” appears as an occasional series in MinnPost’s Book Club Club section. We’re asking well-known and not-so-well-known Minnesotans to tell us about the books they’re reading and recommending to others — and why. Today, Hamline President Linda Hanson shares her selections.

My work entails reading mountains of publications relating to higher education, so my personal reading time is almost always escape with captivating fiction writers. Books recently read are Ethan Canin’s “America America” and Richard Russo’s “Bridge of Sighs,” which compelled me to immediately read Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic.” Russo creates characters that are as memorable as our own relatives with all of the dynamics, both troubling and hilarious; he’s a masterful writer.
 
When I find an author that I enjoy, I follow their work and read them in order of publication — such as with Jodi Picoult’s novels, which always involve family issues that are controversial and enthralling.
 
I also just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s “What the Dog Saw: And other Adventures,” an eccentric collection of his musings which can conveniently be read alongside almost any other book. I find that I read books to fit my mood, so [I like] sometimes having something that can be consumed by chapters and left aside for a while if I detour to read a novel all the way through: I still can parachute back into it and enjoy.