Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?

A: Most mornings, while eating breakfast, I read one of the periodicals I subscribe to. Occasionally I read a book manuscript I’ve agreed to review for an academic publisher. However, if I’m in the midst of a novel, memoir, or short-story collection, all else falls by the wayside, and I read that. Narrative always trumps expository writing, so I have to be cautious about when I start one.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?

A: I subscribe to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review (even though it no longer arrives reliably by mail a week before it comes tucked into the Sunday paper, and may even arrive after), …

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Rachel Shteir is an associate professor at the Theatre School at DePaul University. She is the author, most recently, of The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting (Penguin Press).

Q: What do you read first thing in the morning?

A: New York Times online. I read the paper pretty thoroughly, of course the book reviews, but also all of (or most of) the news. I particularly like the Sunday style section and the Metro section. I like that feature on Sunday where the person describes their day and, of course, the wedding section. I do read “Modern Love.”

Actually, even before I read the NYT, I read e-mail, though reading isn’t really what I do to e-mail—mostly I delete it because mostly it’s junk e-mail—department store ads and Groupon coupons and other entreaties. If I have any Facebook messages, I read those. OK, I look at those.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you…

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Chris Impey is a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?

A. I read The New York Times and NPR online every morning, either getting up to peruse them over breakfast, or lounging in bed and using my iPhone. Resisting the urge to open the Pandora’s Box of email first thing is very important, although some days, I’ll admit, I fail. More occasionally, I’ll go to the BBC online for a more global perspective.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?

A. I subscribe to The Economist, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone. I’m always two months behind the time with The Chronicle of Higher Education because I get it passed on from the library at my work. The Economist has a bracing, and always anonymous, editorial…

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Joshua Greene is an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?

A. My first stop is usually The New York Times, first the front page and then the most e-mailed list.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?

A. After The New York Times, my other main source of online information is Slate. At home I get The New Yorker and a bunch of science magazines: Scientific American, National Geographic, Discover. I read nothing on my phone. I still have a dumbphone.

Q: What books have you recently read? Do they stand out?

A. Recently I’ve read (or am reading) Networks of the Brain, by Olaf Sporns, All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly, Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser, and Semantic Structures, by Ray Jackendoff. I’ve…

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Dana Gioia, a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is a professor of poetry and public culture at the University of Southern California.

Q. What’s the first thing you read in the morning?

A. I’m a sad and solitary thing in the morning until I’ve had a mug of strong coffee. I resume human shape while reading The Washington Post, which gets thinner each year. (If I’m in L.A., I read The Los Angeles Times.) On Sundays I read both the Post and The New York Times. I still miss the great Sunday book sections that the Post and L.A. Times once had.

Q. What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly?  What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?

A. I  usually read  two or three newspapers every day—first the local one (either The  Washington Post or L.A. Times) then later in the day The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. On…

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The experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe is an assistant professor at Yale University.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?

A. As the father of a newborn, I don’t usually get to read anything before work, but I’m looking forward to a time when my mornings will be filled with readings of Curious George and Whose Toes Are Those?

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?

A. We subscribe to The New Yorker and New York Magazine. I never read any of these things online. I still take an almost absurd delight in the moments when I get a chance to sit back in a café with a print edition of The New York Times.

Q: What books have you recently read?  Do they stand out?

A. The last two books I read were Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son and Paul Portner’s Modality—both excellent, though in…

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Geoffrey Miller is an associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?

A. I first read The Economist over breakfast, because it’s the best single source of weekly global news, and its editorial style is such a potent anti-depressant if combined with morning espresso. Whereas other publications focus on doom ‘n’ gloom, The Economist puts even the most alarming stories in their cross-cultural, historical, scientific, and intellectual contexts. In his recent book The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley argues that there are many good evidence-based reasons to expect human lives to continue improving for decades and centuries to come. The Economist embodies that rational optimism. Also, if you have a bone-dry sense of humor like me, it’s very funny, and it’s thrilling to read the same publication that the world’s…

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Yash Gupta is dean of the Carey Business School at the Johns Hopkins University.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning? What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?

A: I start every day at 5 am by catching up on the news. The New York Times is a must-read, the first read, for me every morning. I get it on my iPad. On weekends, I receive the print version of the Times. I also have the print version of The Washington Post delivered to my home each day. A solid 90 minutes of my morning is devoted to reading this sort of material. Later, at home or the office, I’ll look at The Financial Times and The Economist in print form and The Wall Street Journal online. My news reading is pretty much split between print and online—the latter via my iPad, desktop computer, and mobile phone. But I confess I 

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Bill McKibben, a writer and environmentalist, is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?
A: Well, I spend the first few minutes of the morning trying to avoid seeing how much e-mail has piled up. So, I read The New York Times online, and in the summer I read the baseball section of The Boston Globe, and in the winter I read Fasterskier.com, which brings me up to date on the all-important cross-country ski racing news for the day. And then I take a deep breath and head for e-mail.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly?
A: I subscribe to the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, and the Addison Independent (our remarkably good local newspaper). I also read a bunch of environmental magazines, and things like the UTNE Reader or Yes! Magazine, as well as Christian…

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Sonja Lyubomirsky is a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside.

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning?
A: E-mail. After that, I scan the front pages of all the sections of The Los Angeles Times, often reading them out loud to my kids (9 and 11) over breakfast. Later in the day, I read the LA Times cover to cover—usually during lunch or a snack or on the stationary bike.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print vs. online vs. mobile?
A: I read the LA Times every day. My husband (who’s an attorney) also prints out for me almost daily any articles in which he thinks I might be interested from The New York Times or Slate (or others). We subscribe to The New Yorker as well (and to The New York Times on Sundays), and he marks articles I would like. (I’m lucky to have such a…

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