What are you reading?

When I got back from vacation this summer, I walked into my staff meeting and I said everyone needs to read "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka. It's really funny. ... A recent impulse purchase is "Blind Man's Bluff" (by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, and Annette Lawrence Drew), about the Navy's efforts in the early- to mid-Cold War to learn more about what the Soviets were doing via submarines. I also like Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night." I'm a big fan of John Grisham. I know it's pedestrian, but whenever a new one comes out, I buy it. And I'm a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" (series). ... It's like a '50s version of the Hardy Boys.

Many of these authors are British. What about them attracts you?

I think it's that I really do enjoy the craft of writing. For nearly 20 years, I wrote 900 words every week for a financial publication in Boston. It was nothing like fiction — it was economic analysis. When I come across something that is a hard problem that writers carry off well, I have a lot of admiration for them. ... All of those books offer a unique perspective and are hard to make work well.

As UH president, do you relate to the challenge of uniting differing problems and perspectives in a way that's best for all?

I'm not sure I would have made that connection, but there's certainly a level of complexity in the job of any university president because of what universities are. ... It's neat to work with people and realize our potential and provide a valuable resource to the state. So there might be something to that.

What you do see in leadership positions is that there are higher highs and lower lows, and you see a broad range of human experience and leadership experience. It's something like a novelist or short-story writer who tries to capture human experience.