What is your bedtime reading just now?
Many people keep a book by their bedside and read a chapter or two before turning in for the night. What are you reading just now?
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The Martian Chronicles! Such an interesting book to read in short bits over a long period of time.
I just finished last night “If You Really Loved Me” by Ann Rule.
The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, a 16th-century work of surpassing satirical vulgarity by Rabelais. Part of a half-hearted but well-intended effort to either read or ditch books that have been occupying space in my library for years. I bought this one in 1973.
My bedtime reading roams all over the map. You couldn’t call this one representative, really.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
Goddess: Past, Present, and Future by Tom Jacobs
I get really bad neck aches if I read in bed, but usually I do a sudoku puzzle before bed, or a cryptic crossword.
I have to read something that I have already read when it is bedtime. Otherwise, I get too involved and won’t go to sleep. Primarily, I read Maeve Binchy because I find her work to be comforting and interesting all at once.
I like the Kindle for for bedtime reading and I am working my way through a couple of chapters of the Chronicles of Narnia each night.
I do not know how to read.
I don’t do bedtime reading, but I stay on the computer until I get sleepy, and then go to bed.
Right now I’m in the middle of:
Soul’s Perfection, by Sylvia Brown
Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld
The May/June issue of Scientific American
The SAS Guide to Tracking
The US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook
Survive the Coming Storm, by Ray Gano
When I read in bed, I read MAD magazine, because goofy, light-hearted stuff gives me a quick ride to deep and peaceful sleep.
I’ve been trying to read up on metaphysics, wicca, astral projection, Tarot and the like. It’s kind of difficult, though, as most of the books carried by my local library are pretty asinine: “Love Spells for Wiccan Teens” and such garbage.
Any pagans with some favourite literature out there, hit me up!
I’m working my way through the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Its a long book but really fascinating.
I’m reading “Spontaneous Evolution” Our positive future and how to get there from here. by Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D & Steve Bhaerman
Very captivating.
The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. My son really, really wants me to read it so I am.
I am reading a book called “and she was” by Alison Gaylin.
I’m reading Terry Pratchett’s “Nation” – I’ve never managed to get into a TP book before, but this was recommended to me as a different kind of offering, and I’m really enjoying it. (Full of questions about whether gods are real or not, and how much “this is the way things are” is acceptable for becoming “this is how things will continue to be” etc etc.)
Right now I’m rereading Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen. I’ve already read it three or four times, but I really enjoy her stories so it’s a great bedtime read.
Actually, it changes day-to-day. I’m always reading at least 5 or 6 items. That’s why I bought an iPad. That way I can carry my library with me. I can’t help it, I don’t know what I’ll want to read during the next hour!
On my bedside locker, I have a copy of Gilbert & Gubar’s “The Madwoman in the Attic”. As you’ll probably guess, I’ve an essay to write and I seem to be taking the scenic route re getting started with my reading :/
In The Garden of Beasts-Erik Larson
Nothing particularly worth reading. I tend to forget what I read as I get sleepier. By the next night I have no idea who the characters are or what’s going on. By the end of the book, I know I’ve missed a lot of it. So don’t read anything that I really want to keep up with with a clear head. It can’t be boring or my mind will drift elsewhere; but it can’t be worth considering seriously. Night table reading is a very special choice.
It’s hard for me to sleep (unless I’ve been keeping odd hours/schedules) without reading for at least ten minutes at bedtime. Like others, I usually bounce back and forth between books (usually reading 3–4 simultaneously). Right now, my bedtime book is Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, a book I’ve owned for years, but somehow never got around to reading.
Nothing all that exiting currently; pretty utilitarian stuff right now.
Training the Hard to Train Dog: Effective Training Techniques for Working With Shy, Controlling and Stubborn Dogs
(with the emphasis on stubborn in my case)
High Energy Dogs: A Practical Guide to Living With Energetic and Driven Canines
(both energetic and driven, in spades)
My dog is quite a handful, that’s all I can say. :-)
The Love That Dog Training Program
I’m not sure about that one. I came across it at Five and Below and it was only three dollars so I picked it up.
The only fun one I am currently picking up off and on is Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists which I’m not liking quite a much as I had hoped and not as much as the reviews would have led me to believe. It is absolutely hilarious in some places but it’s a book that I think could really have benefitted from a more disciplined editorial process. Klosterman just goes on and on and on in some places and it gets tedious sometimes, in my opinion. He is very funny but the humor could have benefitted from some ruthless nipping and tucking.
Just Kids
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith’s younger years in NYC. A good read.
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. Very good so far.
What a diverse list of books people have listed thus far. Most of them are unfamiliar to me.
I have three books on the go at the moment but have been a bit too distracted to read much lately.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.
And (recommended by one of our fellow jellies)...
Regeneration by Pat Barker.
I am going away next week and hope to finish at least a couple of these then.
I’m in the middle of H.M.S. Ulysses by Alastair MacLean
ReaMdE by Neal Stephenson
several quilting books
Making Mollie magazine
An afghan project
a tiny bag project
D@*m NPR! I just heard about another book I need to add to my many piles! (LOL)
I need light easy reading before bed, nothing scary, depressing or so intriguing that it might f=keep me awake.
Right now I’m reading Janet Evanovich’s Seven Up. < Funny stuff!
@Bellatrix; I think I recommended the Pat Barker (at least I was one). Remember that there are two more books in the trilogy. Then you have to reread all the WWI poets…Sassoon, Owen, and Brooks and then also Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory
Tow bits from reviews of the Fussell:
“One of the best nonfiction works I’ve ever read. I’m a huge fan of virtually everything Fussell has ever done, but this unique book, which uses literature and social history to examine World War I, may be his best. Unflinching.”—James Gray,The Week
“Literary and historical materials, in themselves not unfamiliar, are brought together in a probing, sympathetic, and finally illuminating fashion. It is difficult to think of a scholarly work in recent years that has more deeply engaged the reader at both the intellectual and emotional level.”—The New Republic
I don’t tend to read before going to bed (although I currently keep The Mammy by Brendan O’Carroll in my bag for reading material when I find myself waiting for something) instead I am currently watching episodes of Birds of a Feather on YouTube for half hour before turning out the light.
@GracieT
LOL. D@*m NPR, d@*m the Kindle app on the iPad and d@*m Amazon. Now if I hear about a book on NPR I don’t even have to remember it or write it down or hunt for it. I can usually download it from Amazon within a minute. D@*m them all! Another book on the pile.
@lillycoyote,
The availability of books on the iPad has been SO bad for my bank account! I’ve already spent a fortune on ebooks, and most of books that I have are just samples because I don’t know if I’ll like them or not. It’s even worse because I can shop around and compare prices and availability on all of the different sites.
I guess I really don’t have it that bad, though. I can actually afford many of the ebooks that I want, and I have an iPad with 3G.
@GracieT I just found out that I can read books on my smartphone too ..I am awestruck. There are some popular free ones too!
I’ve moved on to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I’ve never read before, although I bought this copy nearly 20 years ago. (Shopping on your own bookshelves is a good way to keep up your reading without increasing your investment.) On deck: Brasyl, by Ian McDonald.
I have started ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F Scott Fitzgerald which I downloaded to my Kindle for 77p.
I’ve been rereading The Hunger Games trilogy, so it’s taken over both my daytime and nighttime reading. I started Catching Fire today and I’m about 100 pages in. No matter how many times you read the series, it never gets old!
@Plucky, unfortunately there are so many books that I need to read thankfully there are many free sites, and most larger libraries loan books over the web also. The only problem is that I have absolutely no way of turning off my mind when I read. I have ADD, and I’ll be reading something and see something describing something else that I HAVE to read- right now. I can’t stop finding more reading material even while I’m reading something else.
@GracieT That’s why I’m horrible with Wikipedia ..one thing always leads to another and another and… I’m just too curious.
@Plucky I certainly know that one. If anything purely defines “one thing leads to another” it is the internet. I get on to look up something like how to know if I really do need a new roof or something about no-pull dog harnesses and collars, and the next thing I know, I ‘m reading an article on the French Revolution or Mesoamerican irrigation systems, not even sure how I ended up there
Damn, now you’ve got me whispering!.
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