Bedtime reading

Many busy people get a chance to read only when they go to bed at night. What puzzles me is how busy people can stay awake to read anything once they hit the pillow. I've never been able to read more than a couple of pages before it's lights out.

Reading in bed can accomplish one of two things: either put one to sleep or keep one awake. I have never understood those who say a certain book kept them awake all night. Why read thrillers or edge-of-the-seat mysteries at bedtime? Isn't going to bed usually about going to sleep, not staying awake? Another poor bedside book would be something challenging that requires one's full focus, such as a textbook or a literary novel, unless falling asleep, not understanding what you are reading, is your main objective. I recently used a collection of poems by G.K. Chesterton as my nap time reading, one  or two poems a day. The poems helped me sleep, but I feel I shortchanged the poetry.

Clifford Fadiman

In his essay "Pillow Books," written in the 1950s, Clifton Fadiman argues that to use books to either put one to sleep or keep one awake is a misuse of those books. To read through the night "is to trespass upon nature," he says. But "dull books soothe only dull brains -- a moderately healthy mind will be irritated rather than rested by a dull book," he argues. He favors a middle ground, a book that is interesting but not too interesting, relaxing but not too relaxing.

To Fadiman, Anthony Trollope is the perfect author for bedtime reading. "He never fails to interest, but not too much; to sooth, but not too much," he writes. Reading Trollope, or any comparable author, one can turn off the light whenever one chooses. They are books one can easily put down, but which one will be eager to pick up again the following night.

As for me, I never read novels of any kind before sleep. For a time I tried reading short stories, but it could take me weeks, even months, to read a single story of moderate length, simply because of my inability to read more than a couple of pages a night. Most nights I am too tired to read anything at all. Besides I have always been able to find other times during the day to read, so I have never felt that bedtime was my only chance.

For my bedside table, I favor books with very short segments. Meditations can work if they don't require too much concentration. Better are books of quotations or light verse. I have long felt Ogden Nash to be the ideal writer for late at night, and I have one of his books beside my bed right now.

 .