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Jeff Grabmeier, research communications

Posted on | December 9, 2009 | 2,119 views |

Jeff Grabmeier is director of research communications and is active with the National Association of Science Writers.

What are your five favorite books and why?
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
I was assigned this book in a college literature class and was not looking forward to reading it. I’m so glad I did. It helped me overcome my fear of “great literature.”

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
What a wonderful and surprising novel.  Wickedly funny and yet sad at the same time. Even now, I love to pick it up and read passages.

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
I enjoy this book for the way the author explains science in such a philosophical and even poetic way.  In my mind, this qualifies as literature as much as science writing.

Out of the Comfort Zone by Frank Agin
Disclaimer: Frank is my brother-in-law.  But he also is a fine storyteller, and I found myself captivated by his novel of a college football team.

A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America by Roger Tory Peterson
Undoubtedly, there is no book that I have looked through more often in my life. I received my first copy when I was 11 years old, and still treasure it. This book sparked my interest not only in birds, but in the natural world around me.

What is the last book you bought?
Late Edition: A Love Story by Bob Greene. Greene talks about his early days as a newspaperman here in Columbus.  I started my career, as Greene did, at the Columbus Citizen-Journal; and some of the ink-stained wretches he worked with were still at the C-J years later when I was hired.

What magazines do you subscribe to and why?
Maybe it’s my short attention span, but I love magazines. You can probably tell a lot about my interests by the magazines I subscribe to: Newsweek, The New Yorker, Wired, Utne Reader, Rolling Stone, Birding and Audubon.

What’s your “guilty pleasure” – a book you love but don’t often talk about because it’s not “serious” literature?
Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne. I bought it on a whim at a bookstore and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the campy, laugh-out-loud, coming-of-age story. It must be more popular than I thought, as I just learned it will soon be a major motion picture.

What genre of literature do you prefer to read (history, fiction, biography, etc.) and why?
I often read short-story collections, partly because it lets me sample fiction genres I wouldn’t normally seek out.  I recently enjoyed McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, edited by Michael Chabon.

Booktalk appears regularly in onCampus and features the favorite book selections of an Ohio State staff or faculty member. To nominate someone for a future column, e-mail harris.587@osu.edu.

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