When meeting people or experiencing new places in real life is not an option, literature is a much-needed saving grace. At least when it comes to fiction. That Uppsala University employees read books became very apparent at the end of last semester. Hence we are sharing a few new recommended reads that we hope will offer stimulation, with suggestions drawn this time from the internal editorial group. But we won’t be leaving Uppsala University. All featured titles have a connection in one way or another to our university – some of them even have ties to real life, not just fiction.

Gina Gustavsson is a Senior Lecturer, researcher and one of the teaching staff at the Department of Government. Her book “Du stolta, du fria: om svenskarna, Sverigebilden och folkhälsopatriotismen” [Thou proud, thou free: on Swedes, Sweden’s image and public health patriotism] was published in late October last year (2021). It’s title is a play on words based on the first line of Sweden’s national anthem “Du gamla, du fria”. The book is about Sweden and Swedes during the pandemic. The author argues that the pandemic has opened up a wounded pride and that we Swedes are both secret patriots and statist individualists who seek self-actualisation.

Nils Håkansson defended his doctoral thesis in Slavonic languages at our university. But he is also the author of “Dolda gudar: en bok om allt som inte går förlorat i en översättning” [Concealed gods: a book about everything that is not lost in a translation], which won the August Prize for Best Swedish Non-Fiction Book of the Year for 2021. Around half of all books in Swedish are translated from other languages. In his book, the author shows how perspectives on translation have varied from ancient times to the present day.

What about fiction then? Ahead of the University Library’s 400th anniversary celebrations last year, a small book entitled “Mordet på Cristina” [Cristina’s murder] was reissued in 2018. The book was first published in the 1950s, with authorship credited to the pseudonym Elise Dufva. The individual behind the pen name was Gurli Taube, a librarian at the University Library. This mystery novel, which is reminiscent of the best of Maria Lang’s oeuvre, is set in a fictionalised version of Carolina Rediviva.

British author Elly Griffiths was scheduled to visit Uppsala University last autumn to deliver the 2021 Adam Helms Lecture. Unfortunately, this was not possible due to the pandemic. The lecture has been postponed until further notice. However, it is obvious that the author admires our university from her latest instalment in the Ruth Galloway series, titled Nattfalkarna, English title “The Night Hawks”. She writes, among other things, that Uppsala University is “far more prestigious than the University of Norfolk”. And while the University of Norfolk may be fictional, it is very likely that it was modelled on a real-life British university.

Last but not least, I would like to include a kind of hopefulness, which can be found in the title of Jonas Gardell’s most recent book, “Ett lyckligare år” [A happier year]. The book features a scary but illuminating text by Pontus Wikner. The text was locked in a tin box for many years at the University Library and was not published until 1971. Jonas Gardell’s book was published 50 years later.