books you keep on the bedside table for those sleepless nights

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It seems that certain books are tailor-made for those nights when sleep refuses to come easily. Not that they are necessarily bad or even boring - just that they have a certain soporific quality for a mind in the right stage of exhaustion. For me, these are usually books that are rather abstract and dense. For instance, last night, I had very good success with the opening pages of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, which I found someone had put out on the sidewalk a few days ago.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

Got to be any of the discworld novels. Terry Pratchett is the most instantly readable author in existence.

― Shutruk Nahunte, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

"Instantly readable" is not usually what I'm going for at these times though. The last thing I would want is to get engrossed in a book, and end up missing even more sleep. The ideal for me is something rather difficult and thorny, so that I find myself re-reading the same sentence dozens of times. This usually knocks me out in no time.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

Proust. Complicated sentences, but descriptive sentences, so that you start by imagining what he's writing about, and end by dreaming it.
And he gets bonus points for writing about falling asleep while reading.

― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

Fittingly, "Sleepless Nights" by Elizabeth Hardwick.

― Jessa (Jessa), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

Try 'Snow Falling On Cedars'. David Guterson just goes no and on and on!

― Shutruk Nahunte, Wednesday, 22 June 2005 07:07 (twenty years ago)

There are very few books that help me fall asleep - I just end up getting engrossed. Usually I do crosswords, which maybe has a similar effect on the mind to that descibed by o.nate, sending me into a bit of an abstract place. Failing that, Henry James would probably work.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 07:28 (twenty years ago)

Finnegan's Wake, no doubt

― On the bass, 57 7th, he wrote this (calstars), Friday, 24 June 2005 03:30 (twenty years ago)

Any good collection of horror stories.

― Fred (Fred), Friday, 24 June 2005 08:12 (twenty years ago)

At first I thought of Finnegans Wake as a joke answer, but then I started to think of it as a serious answer.

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 24 June 2005 09:22 (twenty years ago)

krazy kat books work really well, herriman's language is kinda hypnotic and soporific, in a good way.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 24 June 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

...because maybe you could actually understand Finnegans Wake better when you were in bed trying to fall asleep.

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 24 June 2005 12:09 (twenty years ago)

i've never really been into comic books, but i have some bound volumes of those old 1950's horror comics like "the haunt of fear" and "tales from the crypt". for some reason, these are just the ticket for insomnia.

― dk, Friday, 24 June 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

I've been trying to read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel for a couple of years now, and it always puts me right out.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 26 June 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

I've usually got Derrida's Writing and Difference, Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Foucault's The Order of Things, the Penguin translation of The Koran and Pounds Cantos by the bed. I find the prose really dreamy and comforting to wrap my head up in.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:20 (twenty years ago)

noodle vague, I love you.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Monday, 27 June 2005 05:43 (twenty years ago)

I've been reading "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe.

― schmutzie, Monday, 27 June 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

Right now: Eliot's Four Quartets, and Travelling Mercies and Plan B, both by Anne Lamott.

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

My husband reads Louis Lamour over and over and over--doesn't matter if he has already read them. He says they are good for putting him to sleep.

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" is perfect for this. It's huge and made for dipping.

― Sredni Vashtar, Friday, 22 July 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

I once bought a Margaret Mead book specifically because I was expecting to have trouble sleeping. It worked very well.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Saturday, 23 July 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

I have a book of Hardy poems. I just roll one around in my head and try to daydream about the situation.

― Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Saturday, 23 July 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

Got to be any of the discworld novels. Terry Pratchett is the most instantly readable author in existence.

Ha, whenever I'm ill and bedridden it's straight to the Pratchett. Comfort reading.

― Matt (Matt), Saturday, 23 July 2005 23:22 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Definitely any fiction by Virginia Woolf. Have been trying to read the last 30 pages of "To the Lighthouse" for over a year, but my eyes always start closing. Her prose is so dense and soporific. Magic clonazepan!

― salexander, Tuesday, 20 September 2005 08:56 (twenty years ago)

"The Return of the Native" by Thomas Hardy has to be the ultimate fall asleep book for me. I studied it for A-level and it took my months to read, I never even seemed to be able to finish a chapter before falling asleep.

― bilblio (Celeste), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 18:57 (twenty years ago)

I've still not been able to read that one!

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 18:59 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

The Anatomy of Malncholy is turned into a play.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 11 November 2013 21:25 (twelve years ago)

btw Book of Disquiet is an obvious ans to this.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 11 November 2013 21:27 (twelve years ago)

i don't really want to see that Anatomy of Melancholy thing but it really is just round the corner from me so I feel like I should.

― woof, Tuesday, 12 November 2013 12:15 (twelve years ago)

I'm re-reading A Dance to the Music of Time at the moment, which both features lots of references to Anatomy..., and fulfills the role of a comfort book for me.

― I like to think I have learnt a thing or two about music (Neil S), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 12:23 (twelve years ago)

Heh, I also had to read Return of the Native for A Level, and only managed to finish it the night before the exam (reader, I passed.)

I like to fall asleep to the Uncle books by J.P. Martin - childhood comforts, dreams of food and friendship.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Uncle-J-P-Martin/dp/1783062835/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384259349&sr=1-1&keywords=j+p+martin

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 12 November 2013 12:29 (twelve years ago)

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