Do you have a stack of books next to your bed? I do! Some of the books have been in the stack for years. One of them (Letters of the Century) was in the stack I had in my old house - and I am still reading it. Slowly. There are rules for reading right before bed. If you read my recent article, "To e or not to e", you know that you shouldn't use your e reader or other device before bed - not if you want a good night's sleep. I never read a novel, or other page-turner, or I will be turning pages all night. Some people have a rule that causes them to only read boring books in the hopes that sleep will come quickly.
Plymouth Library does not have boring books (well, not many) but it does have other books that will help you to wind down at the end of the day. One category of books that I think are good for that purpose are books of essays, short stories, or poetry. There are no cliff-hangers at the end of the essay, story, or poem so you can stop there or read another one if you are not ready to sleep. Here are some examples:
The Penguin book of migration literature : departures, arrivals, generations, returns / 808.8 DAN
My pen is the wing of a bird : new fiction by Afghan women / 891 MYP
Almost everything : notes on hope / Lamott, Anne, 170.44 LAM
The canticle of the creatures : for Saint Francis of Assisi / Santucci, Luigi, 853 SAN
Mother and child : ever ancient, ever new / Granger, Christine, 242 GRA
Hungry spring & ordinary song : collected poems : (an autobiography of sorts) / Tickle, Phyllis, 811 TIC
I can usually close a non-fiction book after one chapter. If the book is fascinating, I need some time to digest that chapter before going on to the next one. Some books have "homework", things you should do or think about after each section. Here are some examples:
Prayer : finding the heart's true home / Foster, Richard J. 248.32 FOS
Be still and listen : experience the presence of God in your life / Smith, Amos 248.2 SMI
How to read the Bible and still be a Christian : struggling with divine violence from Genesis through Revelation / Crossan, John Dominic. 220.6 CRO
How do we look : the body, the divine, and the question of civilisation / Beard, Mary, 704.9 BEA
Who is going to barrel through a book on punctuation? If you have read Eats, shoots & leaves : the zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss (428 TRU), you will know that the temptation is great, but I resisted temptation, took it chapter by chapter, and loved every minute of it.
33 revolutions by Canek Sánchez Guevara (F SAN) (the grandson of Che Guevara) is a novel, but at 94 small pages (and big margins) this "story about the disappointments of a generation that fully believed in the ideals of the Castro Revolution" will fit nicely into your before bed time slot.
American utopia by David Byrne, with illustrations by Maira Kalman (782 BYR) is a picture book for grown ups with questions ("Must a question have an answer?") and some answers and some things to think about.
Seattle cityscape / Steinbrueck, Victor. 917.97 STE: As a fourth-generation Seattle-ite, I love this book of city sketches from 1962. My copy has been by my bed for a long time, and I always enjoy dipping into it.
Letters of the century : America, 1900-1999 / 973.9 ADL: Finally we get to this book which wins the prize for the longest time by a bed. Twentieth Century American history told through hundreds of people's voices. I do love letters - even if they're not written to me.
What do you like to read before bed?