The Chronicle of Higher Education recently highlighted the accomplishments of a number of scholars who continue to be active well into their 80s and 90s (September 4th online).
But let’s not overlook the centenarians. Here are six noteworthy books that have been published in the past year by emeritus professors who are 100 or older.
The Jesus I Knew (Ezekiel Stubbs, Harvard Divinity School): Professor Stubbs is one of the few living academics who was personally acquainted with Jesus of Nazareth. Kirkus Reviews praises the book as “a warm, affectionate tribute that reveals a madcap side of the Son of God that is largely missing from Biblical accounts. Stubbs devotes an entire chapter to the bar mitzvah where Jesus transformed a donut into the world’s first bagel. A must-read.”
Cheese (Maxwell Labrine, Vanderbilt University): The author devotes this 575-page memoir to a single morning in which he sat on his living-room sofa contemplating what type of cheese he would put on his lunchtime sandwich. The New York Times Book Review calls it “a dazzling stream-of-consciousness work that combines the best qualities of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and Joyce’s Ulysses. This cheese is delicious.”
I Remember (Monica Von Blazen, Tufts University): Von Blazen recalls the glorious days when cartoons in The New Yorker were actually funny. She wonders: “What the hell happened?” “A plea for a return to laughter that is so poignant it will leave you in tears,” says The New York Review of Books.
Sequence (Caleb Stavens, The College of Charleston): On a cross-country road trip with his daughter, Stavens reviews his medical bills in an attempt to reconstruct the precise order in which he had his knees replaced, hips replaced, cataracts removed, hearing aids installed, and teeth capped. The Guardian’s reviewer describes it as “a fun ride, but with a serious message about aging for us all.”
“That’s Not My Problem…” (Arlene Ambergris): A side-splitting account of the hundreds of different reasons for missing an assignment deadline that students gave Ambergris over the course of her seven decades as a professor. Each brief chapter focuses on a single excuse and ends with the response Ambergris always gave: “Sorry, but that’s not my problem. That’s your problem.”
Carving History (Fiona Thrush, University of Denver): A day-by-day account of the process by which the Grand Canyon was created by the relentless flow of the Colorado River over millions of years. “Tedious and repetitive, but worth it” (Washington Post).
All of these books can be ordered from Amazon’s Century website.