Caught reading!
A portrait series from the Library of Science
How do scientists read? Where do they read? What do they read? What are their habits and what challenges do they face? This is a portrait series exploring the joy of reading and literature as a refuge.
Jan-Åke Nilsson
In brief:
Title
Professor emeritus of Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology as well as Evolutionary Ecology and Infection Biology at the Department of Biology.
When do you read?
Always in the evening, before I go to sleep. It helps me clear my mind and wind down.
How do you read?
Always printed books. I’m a slow reader, but I always finish a book – you never know if the ending might make the whole book worth-while!
What do you read?
Novels.
Tell us about your reading
I haven’t always been much of a reader. When I was at university in the 1970s, the books I read were mostly those on the required reading list, and during my PhD studies in the 1980s, I mainly read academic articles. The pressure and stress meant that fiction had to take a back seat.
But then I came across John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath and devoured everything he’d written. It was the perfect fit for the stage of life I was at and sparked my love of reading. Since then, books have become an important part of my daily life, a way of complementing my academic life with pure escapism.
Since 1985, my goal has been to read all the August Prize winners in fiction, and sometimes the non-fiction titles too. As for books in English, I often discover new titles by browsing the shelves in bookshops. I tend to get hooked on an author and read everything they’ve written. Favourites? Haruki Murakami, Fredrik Backman and Gillian Flynn. Backmans way of portray difficult topics is impressive.
My best advice? Give yourself half an hour and escape into a book. You won’t find that feeling anywhere else! And talk about what you’re reading – with friends, family or in a book club. It’s rewarding to follow an author’s work and discover new perspectives together.