Doug Reads With Friends

Doug talks with his friend Jad Nachabe, a Lebanese endurance athlete he met through the Beirut Marathon. Jad reflects on growing up between Lebanon and Dubai, the complicated question of where home is, and why he resents describing Lebanese people as resilient when they never chose the hardships that demanded it. They also discuss Jad’s transformation from the kid picked last in school sports to a...

Doug talks with longtime friend Rebecca Ziegler Mano, founder of Education Matters and USAP Community School in Zimbabwe, about a life spent connecting talented young people with opportunity. They discuss why Rebecca has made Zimbabwe home for nearly 30 years, the complicated roles of language, race and privilege in education, the pressures students carry when they leave home, and the increasingly...

Doug talks with Javon Garcia, a clinical social worker in Chicago and former member of the Grinnell Posse Doug mentored, about therapy, masculinity, community, and The Invisible Ache by Courtney B. Vance and Dr. Robin L. Smith. Javon reflects on becoming a therapist, why representation matters, the pressures Black men face around vulnerability and mental health, and why self-care is not enough wit...

Jeff Yamada and I met in 1995 as Peace Corps volunteers in Suriname, and thirty years later our friendship has survived marriages, divorces, career changes, and plenty of ridiculous stories. We revisit a lunar-eclipse mud fight, Jeff’s run-in with a piranha, and what Peace Corps taught us about community and connection. Jeff chose Norma Wong’s When No Thing Works , which leads us into seven-genera...

This is a very different episode of Doug Reads With Friends. Steve Langerud was supposed to be my guest. He had chosen the book, I had read it, and we were trying to schedule the recording when I learned that Steve had passed. So this episode became something else: a tribute to a dear friend, mentor, advisor, colleague, and world-class laugher. Rachel Bly, Thomas Crady, Meg Jones Bair, Joyce Stern...

In this episode of Doug Reads with Friends, Doug talks with Illinois State Senator Graciela Guzman about organizing, public service, community care, and Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower. The conversation moves from Graciela’s path from Grinnell to healthcare policy to elected office, into a powerful discussion of fear, hope, burnout, survival, and what it means to care for people when the...

In this episode of Doug Reads with Friends, Doug talks with Erik Simpson, Professor of English at Grinnell College and one of Doug’s dearest friends from his years in Grinnell. Erik chose Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, giving Doug a long-overdue first read of one of the most beloved novels in English. Their conversation begins with Erik’s work in book arts, paper engineering, teaching, bird ph...

Tammy Draughon joins Doug to talk about The Longest Race by Kara Goucher, but the conversation quickly becomes about much more than running. Doug and Tammy look back on nearly 30 years of friendship, beginning as young teachers at Enloe High School, and talk about teaching physics, coaching high school runners, doing hard things, surviving the Boston Marathon bombing, parenting, faith, and the res...

In this episode of Doug Reads With Friends, Doug talks with his oldest friend, Jeremy Hornik, about nearly 50 years of friendship, ridiculous Shakespeare summers, Chicago improv, slot machine design, family, loss, reading, and the pure comic pleasure of Cocktail Time by P.G. Wodehouse. Jeremy’s choice leads to a conversation about books that do not need to be “important” to matter, the serious cra...

Ep 7: AI Ethics, PosseLove & Culpability (with Dr. Lana Mahgoub) A family survives a self-driving car accident. Two people in another car don’t. From there, everything gets more complicated. Doug sits down with Dr. Lana Mahgoub—psychologist, author, and longtime member of his Grinnell Posse—to talk about Culpability by Bruce Holsinger, a novel that uses AI not just as a theme, but almost as a...

In this episode of Doug Reads with Friends , I’m joined by my longtime friend and former colleague Hazel Raja. We first met in 2013 when she interviewed me to join NYU Abu Dhabi, and over the years we became not just colleagues, but close friends. In this conversation, we reflect on what it means to build real relationships at work, the blurred lines between being a boss and a friend, and how thos...

What does it take to build a country? Doug sits down with Ope Awe—Watson Fellow, Schwarzman Scholar, JD/MBA, and one of the most remarkable former students he’s ever worked with—for a conversation about entrepreneurship, governance, and economic development. They begin with Ope’s journey across South Korea, Brazil, Indonesia, Rwanda, and China, and how those experiences shaped her thinking about w...

In this episode of Doug Reads with Friends , Doug is joined by longtime friend John Bowers — a Grinnell alum and visual effects professional based in Los Angeles — for a wide-ranging conversation sparked by his pick, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. They talk about how they first met (through John’s wife, Leighton), John’s path from Teach for America to Hollywood, and the creative puzzle-solving behi...

Episode 3: Lost in Oaxaca (with Alicia Hayes) In Episode 3 of Doug Reads With Friends , Doug is joined by Alicia Hayes —one of the most admired (and most universally liked) people in the world of fellowships advising, and a longtime friend from their shared professional home: NAFA, the National Association of Fellowships Advisors. Alicia chose Lost in Oaxaca by Jessica Winters Mireles , a romance...

Episode 2: The Art of Gathering (with Josh Blue) In Episode 2 of Doug Reads With Friends , Doug calls up his friend Josh Blue—Grinnell alum, Hong Kong–based educator, and one of Doug’s daily companions thanks to a remarkably committed New York Times puzzle Facebook group. Josh chose The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker, a book about why so many meetings, dinners, an...

Welcome to the first episode of Doug Reads With Friends , the podcast I made so I have an excuse to call people I miss and pretend it’s for content. My first guest is Cheryl Rainford : high school friend, theater kid, VW Thing legend, and (plot twist) my kidney recipient. We talk The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong: found family, underdogs, Western Mass vibes, and why “JUICY” sweatpants are bas...