The Book Relay

Last changed: 12 February 2025

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.

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 hold the baton was vice-chancellor Maria Knutson Wedel. She is now passing it on to Joel Lindblom, who has been chairman of the Faculty of Forest Sciences' student union and is currently in his third year of the Forest Sciences programme. He is also a member of the committee working on the student union's 120th anniversary. Joel will present his books and inaugurate his exhibition at the library in Umeå on 12 February at 12 noon. The exhibition will then go on tour and will be in Alnarp from 10 March and then in Uppsala from 7 April.

Book Relay No 2: Joel Lindblom, Forest science student and active student union member

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?

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.