There are books that have meant a lot in our lives. They may be books we read as children or adults, non-fiction or fiction. In the Book Relay, staff, researchers and students at SLU highlight some of their greatest reading experiences.
An exhibition of the selected books will be opened in conjunction with the presentation of the books by the person holding the baton. The exhibition then alternates between the libraries in Umeå, Alnarp and Uppsala. The person who has held the baton passes the task on to the next person who selects their books.
Johan Wirdelöv is a university lecturer at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management in Alnarp. He has selected ten books for the library's book relay exhibition. The exhibition will be on display in the library in Alnarp until 5 November, in Uppsala 10 November – 8 December and in Umeå 10 – 26 January.
Book Relay No 3: Johan Wirdelöv, university lecturer
The two previous holders of the baton have already mentioned how difficult it has been to choose ten books, so I will simply agree with them. In any case, I have set two criteria that have helped me to compile a meaningful list.
Firstly, the book must be worthy of attention today and have some kind of relevance for an audience. I may have been an avid reader of En ding ding värld in the 1990s, but telling the audience about it would not really give them much.
Secondly, the book must have had an impact. In other words, the book must have played a role in how I view the world, and I would in some sense have been a different person without it. Without this criterion, one might as well have asked Chat GPT for a list.
Incidentally, my preparation of the list coincided with the presentation of Sweden's cultural canon, which prompted reflection on what makes a list interesting and meaningful.
By the way – how difficult it has been to choose!
The emperor of Portugallia by Selma Lagerlöf (1914)
There is only one work with classic status on this list – the unfortunate story of Jan in Skrolycka. When his daughter moves to the big city, he goes mad and believes himself to be an emperor. The formerly meek homebound man is now seen in the village wearing a leather cap, carrying a silver-knobbed cane and wearing cardboard stars on his chest. He sings: The Empress's Father / He is so happy at heart, and at first, those around him play along with his grandiose but disturbing fantasy.
A multitude of analyses can be drawn from this story: about generational conflicts, about power and hierarchies, about family relationships, about mental illness. For me, the story is about how difficult circumstances in life can force the creation of fantasy worlds, and even more about how painful it is when the comfort of fantasy is finally taken away from you. I think that we all have an emperor inside us in some way.
Vålnadernas historia: spöken, skeptiker och drömmen om den odödliga själen by Magnus Västerbro (2019)
I don't believe in ghosts one bit, but I am extremely interested in them. I could say that the subject is a gateway to larger questions and discussions about human mortality and our relationship to grief and death, but fundamentally, my interest is probably more about seeing a kind of entertaining charm in the darkness of the spirit world.
For us captivated sceptics who are drawn to the spirit world, The History of Ghosts is tailor-made reading. The author describes how Western beliefs about life after death have changed over different eras. But a story about the history of belief in ghosts is just as much a story about the history of sceptics. Apparently, throughout most of history, there have been individuals who have stubbornly refused to believe in the spirit world. Even in the most religious and ecclesiastically powerful contexts, there have been people who have said: When you die, that's it, period. In 15th-century England, for example, there was a cloth maker named Thomas who, contrary to all norms, defiantly believed that the body and soul end together, like when a light is extinguished. For this, he was sentenced to public humiliation and threatened with burning at the stake. Did he change his mind? I don't think so.
Om undran inför samhället by Johan Asplund (1970)
Of all the literature I read as a doctoral student, Johan Asplund's concise little book is the one I hope has most effectively vaccinated me against becoming a rigid researcher. Every time I think about Om undran inför samhället I feel an urge to... well, wonder.
What has stayed with me most is Asplund's idea of aspect seeing – seeing something as something else. Aspect seeing is necessary for the phenomena in our world that can appear in different guises and forms of meaning, and therefore cannot be reduced to absolute truths. Social phenomena, such as everyday behaviours, are such phenomena. A typical Asplund question: What does it mean to say hello to someone? Although the book is limited to the field of sociology, it has made an impression on my relationship to science in general.
Aliide, Aliide by Mare Kandre (1991)
Competing with Stig Dagerman, Mare Kandre takes her place as representative of that phase some of us go through (and perhaps never fully leave) involving melancholy, depression and weltschmerz. On the surface, Aliide, Aliide is a coming-of-age story about an eight-year-old girl in a Swedish high-rise neighbourhood, possibly in the 1970s. What it is really about, perhaps, is that creeping feeling of alienation from a world that is fundamentally absurd. Kandre's style can be described as lyrical with a stubborn dirtiness:
But the children here didn't make much noise otherwise. They were of a relatively frightened, quiet sort, and in the winters they all wore funny little knitted hats that smelled of cigarette smoke and spinach.
I know that for many readers, this book is too much – too many impressions, too many exclamation marks and capital letters, too much style and angst alternately. Yes, it is emotionally heavy and expressive, and the gestures are grand, but for some of us, there has been a time in our lives that has been perfect for this type of story.
Architecture Depends by Jeremy Till (2009)
Now, several years later, I can see some flaws in this book. Among other things, I think the author exaggerates the architectural profession. Nevertheless, Architecture Depends was a sensation when I first read it as an architecture student. I wanted to be able to think about architecture beyond questions of "beautiful" and "ugly", but I didn't really have the language or perspective.
Jeremy Till argues that randomness is a strong factor in both the design and use of architecture. On the surface, it's an easy statement – but the 200 pages the author spends turning it around and around were, for me, like having eye surgery to see more and better. The book is still part of my view of design, whether we're talking about buildings and outdoor environments or entire cities.
The Wind on the Ground by Harry Martinsson (1964)
This spot was originally meant for Tomas Tranströmer, but he's been so hyped up and showered with awards that highlighting him would be like kicking in an open door. As an employee at an agricultural university, I wanted to showcase something that I felt was particularly powerful in terms of forests and land in literature. This is achieved with Harry Martinson's short collection of unique and elegant observations. This is how he describes a fox in winter sticking its tongue into a snow-covered anthill and being tormented by the dazed, angry insects:
This is repeated until the tongue is sore and painful and the fox is reasonably full, or at least satisfied. He licks his sore tongue gently around his mouth. Life is hard for an animal. The bitter food of the forest is harsh.
After reading The Wind on the Ground once, I found myself in a Harry-like state, viewing nature through his peculiar eyes. It is with his words that I experience the smell of earth in April every year and think of it as ”raw” and ”objective”.
Mjölk och människor by Matilda Josephson (2024)
People fainted when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I won't care much until a comic book artist wins the prize. Unfortunately, that probably won't happen in my lifetime. In any case, I could have filled this entire list with highlights from the educational journey whose final destination is called comic book nerd. It begins with traditional summer cottage comics such as Åsa-Nisse and Fantomen, continues with the irreverent Pyton, and leads across the threshold to Galago and the comic art that is now considered worthy of the culture pages.
My choice of a contemporary album represents a broader admiration for comic book creators who have come and gone – including Joakim Pirinen, Nina Hemmingsson, Lena Ackebo, Max Andersson and David Nessle. The fact that Mjölk och människor strikes a chord with me is not only because of the comic book format, but also because, like the main character herself, I worked at the checkout at Ica in my teens. In an apt and captivating way, Josephson presents the grocery store as a public stage on which a gallery of people and their destinies pass by and meet. The store becomes a small cosmos of interpersonal behaviours that are sometimes tragic, sometimes comical, and most often tragicomic. It's just as I remember it.
Skuggan på världens botten och andra berättelser by Thomas Ligotti (2012)
Here we have the narrowest book on the list, which should interest very few in the audience. Horror is something of a love-it-or-hate-it genre, and if you think horror is ridiculous or too terrible, you should forget the name Thomas Ligotti. Personally, I am a convert.
Ligotti is often associated with alternative literary movements such as the new weird and speculative fiction. He takes H.P. Lovecraft's so-called ”cosmic horror” further, which is basically based on the horror of realising that you, as a human being, are fundamentally insignificant. Another genre designation for Ligotti could be ”worldview horror”.
Ligotti is difficult to read and even more difficult to describe. For example, one story consists solely of a long description of a disused factory and its disturbing production, like ”an exquisitely neat music box which, when opened, emitted a short gurgling or sucking sound that mimicked the death rattle of a dying individual.”
Compared to an effective dramatist like Stephen King, Ligotti's work can instead be likened to suggestive poetry. Think of gloomy pencil sketches of outlying towns, in the borderland between autumn and winter. Think of mood rather than shock. Imagine horror stories built on the chilling thought that your life may be completely meaningless.
Det omätbaras renässans: en uppgörelse med pedanternas världsherravälde by Jonna Bornemark (2018)
Unfortunately, I missed Jonna Bornemark's recent visit to SLU's Studium Generale. Perhaps I can console myself by repeating this criticism of our measurable society and our modern-day obsession with numbers, statistics, columns, evaluations, quality indices, grading scales, pedometers and so on. We certainly need to measure things, but the question is whether we are not at the same time risking becoming blind to the immeasurable.
One aspect of the book that has stayed with me is the many original and borrowed expressions used in the work – pre-papering, life draining, conceptual imperialism, and modernity's disenchantment of the world. Encountering these was to feel: This is exactly how I have thought – I just didn't know it until now.
Lyckad nedfrysning av herr Moro by Andersson, Boman & Borbás (red.) (1992)
If you work at a university, it is not unlikely that you were a precocious child, and you never miss an opportunity to point out how, as a child, you naturally read books above your age level. Even though I was only slightly younger than the intended target audience, this book became my claim to intellectual precociousness. Because that's how it felt to leaf through it – as if I had stolen an access card and stepped into a place where children were not allowed.
The question is whether Lyckad nedfrysning av herr Moro crosses a line in terms of what young people should be exposed to. When I open the book after a 30-year hiatus, I am struck by its unfiltered darkness. Schoolchildren would thus be exposed to black-and-white photographs of the death penalty, lynchings, war crimes and book burnings. The horrors are interspersed with texts by names such as Nietzsche, de Beauvoir and Freud, with Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, human rights and the photo of Einstein sticking out his tongue.
But despite – or because of – the book's shock value, I still perceive it as a powerful initiative for education and humanism. I read a columnist who argued that in the pre-internet era, Lyckad nedfrysning av herr Moro became ”a rumour and a legend” among young people in parts of the country who had not been given the book. It is not only in terms of technology that the era feels distant – would such a bold humanistic initiative even be politically possible today?
Those of us who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s remember school days filled with campaigns, theme days and various initiatives such as Stoppa sabbet (Stop the Bullying), Om detta må ni berätta ... (Tell Them About This…) and the now forgotten Släng kniven (Throw Away the Knife) initiative. Of all the campaigns from that era, there is no doubt which one made the strongest impression on me.
Previous participants in the Book Relay
Read the participants' own presentations of their book tips below.
I thought it would be easy to choose ten books and write a few lines about them. Once again, I am humbled. The list below is a patchwork of last-minute changes and obvious candidates. Something that hadn't occurred to me before is how incredibly personal it would be to choose books that have had an impact in my life. I am far from the only one who has read the books on my list, no book seems particularly unknown. Yet I weigh up each title. What will people think? How good is this book really? How do I come across through my choices?
Eventually, I decide that these are the books that have both stuck with me growing up and the ones that have stood out from the rest now that I'm reading as an adult. I can't change that. All of them are somehow etched in my mind and it doesn't take long between thinking about them.
Well, enjoy, dear readers, because I'm giving myself away. You can think what you want!
The books I remember from my childhood, which I believe have shaped my upbringing and have stayed with me long afterwards.
Loranga, Masarin and Dartanjang and Loranga Loranga by Barbro Lindgren
Books from my childhood that are close to my heart. I remember my mother reading aloud to me when I was little until we both burst out laughing. Barbro Lindgren invents the most absurd worlds that does not perceive anything as particularly remarkable. Fill the garage with water to make a swimming pool? Of course you do. A grandfather who is so old that he became a bird? Nothing weird about that. How about 1,000 tigers suddenly appearing out of the forest and disappearing just as inexplicably? Sounds like just another day. The closeness to the imagination and the craziness is something that has stayed with me long after my mother's reading sessions.
The hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
One of my failings as a reader is that I have read very little Tolkien. However, I have read this book several times. Perhaps this book has been a little extra important to me as I can draw some parallels to myself as a teenager? Going from being very home-loving to throwing myself out there traveling to many new places with the scouts, first to camps and then to federal meetings. Bilbo's story may be great but the essence is to dare to leave the comfort and familiarity, which is something I think we should all expose ourselves to at some point in our lives.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
I have read the Harry Potter books more times than I can remember. This is the main symbol of the book worm-era of my childhood. I remember borrowing the books from neighbours and friends to fill in the gaps at the local library. The fifth book; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with its 993 pages became the protagonist of a competition between me and my friend Tage to see who could read it the fastest. My record is six days and I can also say that Tage reads faster than me.
The adventures of Tintin by Hergé
Can you add cartoons to this list? I will. Growing up, comic books have been ever-present. From Bamse to The Phantom. My father's collector's albums of Hälge, Calvin & Hobbes and Lucky Luke are well read, but it is Hergé's Tintin that is most important to me. It is the mystery and adventure combined with the jokes and the little pieces of art in every section that make Tintin rise above the rest I think. At home, my wall is adorned with the album cover of The Black Island and that would probably be enough to qualify for this list. Joining Tintin, Captain Haddock and Snowy is always a cozy moment and reading them now as an adult increases my appreciation for them. I fail in my attempts to pick a favourite.
Depictions of our world, however horrible it may be. Two books describing being under complete control, one of which has a happy ending.
In order to live by Yeonmi Park
Yeonmi Park's portrayal of her childhood in North Korea, and her subsequent escape, is a book of almost constant suffering. I am impressed by her enormous strength as she repeatedly faces terrible challenges in her life. Yeonmi overcomes everything and manages to save not only herself but also her family at only 13 years old. It is she, her family, and the citizens of North Korea who pay the price of Kim Jong Un's regime. Eye-opening, terrifying and disturbing.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Putting the world's most famous dystopia on this list might seem a bit uneducated, but it's still the one story that has left the biggest impression on me. For me, the reasons behind the book are actually more interesting than the work itself. George Orwell is a public debater more than anything else in my opinion. Despite the book being written in 1948 Orwell manages to remain relevant to this day with sometimes frightening accuracy, where his fantasy and symbolic caricature today has become reality. However, the focus should be on Orwell's description of the information society, and it is precisely this that makes the book eternally relevant.
The stories that have touched me and stuck with me. When you get drawn in and can't help but turn the page, for whatever reason.
Stoner by John Williams
I don't think I've ever been so moved by a book as this one. Stoner made me evaluate what books to spend my time on; where has this kind of literature been all my life and why am I only discovering it now? Stoner made me reflect on my relationships, personal and professional, and at times I couldn't read any further because it was simply too hard. It is the best book I have ever read.
Osebol by Marit Kapla
Marit Kapla has written a unique book in which she interviews all the inhabitants of the small village of Osebol in Värmland. That this book will offer the kind of stories it actually does is hard to imagine before reading it. Osebol's 42 inhabitants provide an equal number of life stories and these are all united in the small community. I have never read a book like this, deeply fascinating and actually very surprising. When traveling through our vast country, the small communities seem to just pass by, but in all these small cottages live people with their own unique stories. Osebol is a celebration of how different our lives are.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
Fantasy has probably always been my favourite genre. It started in elementary school when my friends and I would play in the woods at recess and be knights, orcs and wizards. In recent years, I've become hooked on Andrzej Sapkowski's book series about Geralt and the Witcher universe (which has now become a TV series that is obviously not as good as the books). In my opinion, Sapkowski takes a slightly different approach to the genre and gives it a more modern twist. Themes such as racism and exclusion take up a lot of space and the characters are often faced with dilemmas that rarely have a good outcome. All this takes place in a complicated world with its own politics, magic and of course - monsters; whatever that means.
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
I think I have a soft spot for Alexandre Dumas' stories. Both The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo are among my favourite stories. If I were to analyse why I like them, I would say that Dumas' works are both about self-realization: D'Artagnan, for instance, rides into Paris on an ugly yellow horse to the ridicule of the public but makes a name for himself through his own power and determination. In reality, I think it's much simpler than that for me; royal intrigues, fencing duels and chases on horseback are all very cool. Does it have to be much more complicated than that?
I can't choose just ten books. Different books have meant different things to me and I have had a long life with lots of reading of different kinds of texts. But what they all have in common is that these books have meant a lot to me. From an early age I had such a hunger for reading that I accidentally cracked the reading code myself in kindergarten. I got permission from the school library to borrow more than five books because I read them so fast. All this leading up to the first time at university with the tough experience of encountering a text where I did not understand at all what was written when I first read it.
From books that helped my brain take a week's vacation in a deck chair, to books where I felt the content changed the way I looked at the world. And all the quick reads of reports which collectively gave a bird's eye view of what's going on. And all the bedtime stories from Little Anna, Findus and Nasse to Harry Potter that were directly translated by me when my children couldn't wait for the Swedish edition. Anyway, I will try to prioritize.
Books that meant something growing up, and that have taken on new meaning when revisited in middle age:
Maria och blå prinsen - Marie Louise Rudolfsson
Maria, the girl with the same name as me, who lived in the city of Gothenburg and loved horses like me, but had a second life in the country with grandma and grandpa, with wooden floors, rag rugs and stables. I got a glimpse of a different way of life, I dreamed myself away and was inspired. I had some of the books in the series and knew them almost by heart. Many years later, when I was on sick leave for exhaustion and unable to read, I opened them again and gently reawakened the twists and turns of my brain. My memory was shorter than the length of a sentence, but I knew the story almost by heart and the text was easy to read.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
I was on a plane to the US on my way to a conference and laughed so hard that people looked at me strangely. The crazy story and the unreasonable claims, written in a sober tone. The improbability machine, mice and Vogon poetry. A lucid description of the sometimes worst sides of us humans, or just an entertaining text written by someone with creativity without control. I don't know, but if I say 42 as a comment on something, I sometimes find a kindred spirit in the strangest of contexts.
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Entering Tolkien's world, with its magnificent surroundings and beautiful language, is like a long journey. You stay in that world while you read the books. Even if I leave the book on the table at home, the beautiful words linger on for a while. I read the books when I was young and returned to them when I read them for my children. Somehow he tells me about his characters so that I understand my fellow human beings a little better. It’a a real fairy tale and the world he creates is so well connected that the movies were actually worth watching. With many quotes to return to - what about second breakfast?
One of many reading experiences with my children:
The Book about Moomin, Mymble and the Little My - Tove Jansson
Our family moments every night with reading aloud at the bedside were a shared joy. Even today, when something didn't turn out as we had planned, we say, with a Finnish accent, “-and the Moominmamma said with force, we drink lemonade from now on”. At the library we browsed for the week's upcoming reading, but we had Tove Jansson's The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My on the bookshelf and often returned to it. Watching the children study all the details in the illustrations, knowing what is on the next page but still finding it exciting to turn the page. A special and long period in my life with bedtime stories. From that period, I could add ten more books to my list of special reading experiences.
Reading books where I've been captured by something - where the insights into what it is about come gradually:
Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
Fantasy. Magical, painfull beautiful text. Large marble halls and you become one with the creature that inhabits them, feel the water pouring in. And then the story unfolds more and more. I was on vacation and wished the book would never end. I wish I could write about it as beautifully as she does. The book has stayed with me for years with its many layers. Now I have to read her book Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norris - but what if it's not as good?
The shadow of the wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
I opened what I thought was a simple paperback, a moment's diversion, but soon found myself in a damp and foggy Barcelona. It was written in a different style and pulled me right into the story. An experience, not just a reading experience, and I couldn't put the book down and read it cover to cover. When the sequel came, I thought the same thing would happen again but I was wrong. This book is special, odd, and I don't think I want to analyse it to find out why. Just remember the feeling that it moved me to another place and time.
Visiting other cultures and gaining new perspectives:
The joys of motherhood - Buchi Emecheta
It was the first time I read something by an African author and a whole new world opened up. It is about the situation of a woman in Nigeria in the twentieth century. Old traditions merge and collide with the new. Imagine if we had been taught this in school. Instead of reading about other countries and cultures, we would have been exposed to other countries' own literature. The book opened the door to the possibility to gain new perspectives through stories. There have been many over the years and most recently I was far from Africa with..
Stolen - Ann-Helén Laestadius
...where I got the child's perspective on, among other things, the challenges of including Sami reindeer husbandry in today's society. All school children should read it.
Influx of new thoughts that I have integrated into my values for leading a university:
Organising Innovative Research: The Inner Life of University Departments - Li Bennich-Björkman
How hard can it be to get excellent research? Li tells us about this in her interesting study of environments that are on the rise and environments that are fading according to their peers. I am left with a picture, based on her book, of the successful environment where each doctoral thesis or paper may not be made of gold, but together, with bricks, gold bricks and mortar, the department or research group builds a castle that they (almost) completely agree on how it should look as a whole. They have high ceilings and disagree, but they have coffee together and write papers together. KASAM - sense of coherence. And what about the fading ones? They often still produce gold, but they don't build anything together anymore and the results lie like a pile of gold bricks on the floor.
Academic values lead the way - Göran Bexell and In defence of education -Sverker Sörlin
I describe these two books together. Bexell's I got at SUHF's vice-chancellor course HELP many years ago and it made a huge impression on me. Sörlin's I saw the title of and thought it would be interesting. Both books have been enormously supportive of how I can view the fundamental tasks of the university. To think about autonomy, academic freedom, academic responsibility and standing up for education while concepts such as matching and microcredentials cloud the view of what is a university education. Books to be read in small chunks to give plenty of room for reflection. Like broccoli for the brain: both incredibly tasty and nutrient-dense. I have returned to them for speech writing, presentations and quotes. I will return to them many more times in the future.