Some books I read in the first quarter of 2026
Apropos of nothing… I’m a voracious reader and this year there’s been a lot of good books that stood out to me. I’m a bit obstinate, and I hate to leave a book unfinished - I commit to the ride pretty early on, whether I’m enjoying it or not. For me, reading is part pleasure and part education. Everything I read adds a piece to a gigantic puzzle of meta-references and resonances. This means reading is not always about enjoyment, but this year I was lucky to somehow combine business and pleasure more than I expected.
Sweet Days of Discipline (Fleur Jaeggy, 1991)
Short but not exactly sweet, this book tells of the narrator’s schoolgirl infatuation with another girl at a prestigious Swiss boarding school in the, I’m guessing, 60s? Absolutely delicious, a wonderful look into a melancholy and emotionally brutal private world. I can’t wait to read more books by Jaeggy - if anyone reading this happens to have a favourite, shoot me a line and tell me what to read next.
Doctor Faustus (Thomas Mann, 1947)
This book was written during WII and struggles with German cultural identity - in the sense of, what remains of it, if anything, after Nazism? Long discourses on music theory make this somewhat dense and slow to read, but fortunately Thomas Mann was an extraordinarily talented prose stylist and it’s a pleasure to listen to him talk about literally anything, though Death in Venice remains my favourite.
The English Understand Wool (Helen DeWitt, 2022)
I have to confess I re-read this novella because I came home drunk and wanted something I could read in an hour that would make me laugh. It did. Highly recommended.
The Atrocity Exhibition (J.G. Ballard, 1969)
Another re-read; I might have read this 4 or 5 times. Books like this, that play very loose with the definition of a novel, are always very inspiring to me; not because I want to write like Ballard, exactly, but rather because it reminds me that anything is possible, that you can do what you want, stretch the format as you wish, and nobody can stop you. The version of the book I read this time had a sort of odd “Director’s Commentary” of notes in the margins explaining the myriad references in the text, artworks and literature and historical events that inspired it, et cetera, which rather than being distracted was actually tremendously helpful and interesting and led me down a lot of interesting paths. I shared some of my favourites on my Twitter. Ballard differs from other writers of the, you might call it mid-20th century edgelord set, in that he seems to have been a pretty decent person in his private life (raising two daughters on his own as a widower), despite his focus (in his writing) on human predation and perversion. I love this 1984 interview in the Paris Review.
Today I think I’ll commit to finishing The Gospel of Jesus Christ by José Saramago… it’s Easter, after all, and what better way to spend it? I’m also looking forward to reading (and looking) through The Unified Field, about the paintings of David Lynch, which a particularly thoughtful lover gifted me after fulfilling my wish for a Berlin date to the Pace Gallery in March. Want to fulfill another wish? I have plenty of wishes, I am full of desires.
I hope your Easter is filled with eggs, bunnies, and daffodils (in Sweden we call them “Easter lillies”). Or atonement, discipline, and rebirth, if that’s the way you prefer it. Which I do.
With love,