A list of books and essays that I love - by Henrik Karlsson

I thought it’d be fun to do a series where I answer questions, or write essays in reaction to prompts you give me. This essay is the first attempt. If you want to submit a question or a prompt for a future essay, you can do so in the comments to this post, or in the Google Form I link at the end. RJ: What books/authors have influenced you? I’ll give you a list. But first some context. When our oldest daughter, Maud, was a toddler, she used books with author portraits on them as her dolls. She had Crime and Punishment in a baby stroller, Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking in a diaper, and on the sofa, Maud herself sat, breastfeeding Thomas Bernhard. This amused me no end because I love seeing books brought down to that level: it’s where they belong. It always felt strange to me how some people put famous authors on pedestals. Authors are our friends! They are odd people who talk to us, sometimes from across the grave. I haven’t always found it easy to relate to people in everyday

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• Vincent Yang