Snooze

May 1, 2017
An eyes-wide-open look at the penumbral world of sleep, where we spend so much of our time without quite knowing why."We inhabit a culture that keeps people on the brink of falling asleep and yet inhibits them from doing it properly," writes McGirr (Things You Get for Free, 2012, etc.), an Australian writer and former Jesuit priest who describes instances of tipping over that brink in the classroom, congregation, and nearly every other place where beleaguered people try to grab a few winks. Blame it on Thomas Edison, who worked 18 hours per day, enjoyed no social life to speak of, and led "a gang of assassins" who "murdered sleep" with his infernal electric lightbulb. However, as the author notes, we had been trying to extract light from darkness long before. In a lively though sometimes too centrifugal cultural history, he explores key moments, venturing the wise observation that "The Odyssey is a book about getting home to bed" and working in personal apercus redolent of Proustian sentiment: "When I was a child, I often found myself unable to sleep." If the overarching subject of the book is sleep, its villains are the agents of sleeplessness and irregular sleep: insomnia, nightmares, narcolepsy. On all of these points, McGirr has something interesting to say, and he observes that narcolepsy, though a shadowy ailment, still affects about as many people as Parkinson's disease and, thus, is more common than we might suspect. Being a sometime Jesuit, the author fits theology into the discussion without much fanfare: "God is a creature of the night" who was content to create darkness first and only later thought to illuminate the scene. And speaking of God, Keith Richards has some catching up to do: though well-known for his three- and four-day bouts of going without sleep, the record-holder, in 1965, went a staggering 11 days without it. A good book to curl up with while pondering the mysteries of Morpheus.

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May 15, 2017

Inspired by the sleeplessness that ensued after the birth of his twins, McGirr (Things You Get for Free), a writer and former priest, presents a thoughtful series of meditations on the many aspects of sleep. Divided into brief chapters ("8:45 PM"; "Midnight"), this book covers a wide scope of science, literature, and history, tackling the theme of slumber in fairy tales and ancient myths, the writings of William Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift, and The One Thousand and One Nights. McGirr describes how Thomas Edison's light bulbs and Florence Nightingale's hospital beds changed how we rest, examines how sleepiness and wakefulness affect human relationships, explores dreams and disorders, and, as a sufferer of insomnia and sleep apnea, discusses his own treatment and science's search for a good night's sleep. As soothing as it is shifting, the narrative moves easily among writers, world leaders, and doctors and patients sharing stories of dreams and lost hours. VERDICT A pleasantly mindful work for general readers who enjoy science as well as anyone seeking that elusive satisfying night's slumber.--Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

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