What's on Patricia Torvalds's Bedside Table?

Patricia Torvalds is the talented designer behind Patricia Swim, a swimwear label available online and at Café Forgot. Patricia Swim was also featured on the cover photo and in the New York section of the Mars Review Swimsuit Edition, which is nearly sold out but remains available for a limited time here.

You can read our previous bedside table series entries here:

• Camille Sojit Pejcha

• Hansen Shi

• Magdalene Taylor

• Ellie Lynch

• Alex Perez

• Default Friend

• Matt Gasda

The Mars Review may receive a small commission if you purchase books via links in this email.

Patricia herself

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Here: The books that live or have very recently lived on my bedside. Some of them look a bit chewed on because they also live in my work backpack. I do most of my reading on the G train. I am a relentless dog-earer but I do not write in my books. Aside from the Mars Review, I'd like to recommend lit.salon, a pretty little website dedicated to book reviews. Goodreads prizes mediocrity and I won't publish any of my thoughts there, so my Instagram story and Lit Salon present a valuable alternative.

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

A thousand-page historical fiction novel about a woman in 14th-century Norway, published in three segments from 1920 to 1922. A major success at the time, now more under the radar. It's so compelling and Undset writes the 1300s with such perfect ease. While there are about 500 years between this and Little House on the Prairie, there are weird parallels in the simplicity of language and reverence for nature as well as the timeless harmonies in love stories (or stories about confronting the cruelty of love and bonds of family). I was always such a Little House girl. Currently, I'm reading this.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Like the oldest literature. This consumed me. I was super weird about this one and kinda bugged people out. I was being obsessive about again like this enduring eternal humanity even from 5,000 years ago. I finished it recently.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton

Lewis made me believe in God. Being called to serve a higher power deeply resonates as I reflect on the actions I am most proud of in my life which seem guided by a love more powerful than I know myself capable of, which I can only attribute to God. I read this in the last month or so. He's such a generous writer and so given to the task of explaining Christianity. Also: Chesterton, which I picked up after reading Lewis reference him multiple times. Both of them converted to Christianity in adulthood. Hearing that kind of feels like when you hear "Thomas Edison was 50 when he invented the lightbulb," or whatever, like there's still time to get it right.

Annihilation: A Novel by Michel Houellebecq

This was a birthday gift from a dear friend who knows very well my love for Houellebecq. Maybe the only novel of his I hadn't yet read aside from Lanzarote and Possibility of an Island—ones no one ever talks about. (Are they the same book or not? Real question.) I love when he gets speculative, sci-fi adjacent. I greatly enjoyed Elementary Particles which I read prior for that reason. They're all special. Hopefully not his last one although by the end of this one, he seems pretty much done. Just finished this.

Accounting All-in-One For Dummies by Michael Taillard

I got this because I'm about to work on an accounting product at my job and I don't know anything about accounting. Accountant wife, lawyer husband. The most boring people you've ever met!

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

Shirley Hazzard writes with a consonance that you must read to believe. I read it earlier this year and it just lives in the background of my brain now. Cenotaph—catafalque—cataphract. All in the same chapter!

Omegas and Leo

Bonus bedside watch pic of my Omegas who also tend to live on the table. Gifts from my fiancé. I love a boxy little gold watch. Thank you Leo the cat for being here too.