The Book Relay

The person who has held the baton will present their books and open an exhibition of the selected books. The exhibition will alternate between the libraries in Umeå, Alnarp and Uppsala. The person who has chosen their books will then pass the task on to the next person who will select their books.

The first to take the baton is vice-chancellor Maria Knutson Wedel. She will inaugurate her exhibition and talk about her chosen books at the library in Uppsala on 2 October at 12:10. Her exhibition will then be on display in Umeå from 5 November and in Alnarp from 4 December.

Book Relay No 1: Maria Knutson Wedel, vice-chancellor at SLU

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.