Synopses & Reviews
in the wee hours For people to whom sleep comes easily, the night is a welcoming place. For those who hold no visa for the state of REM, minutes pass like hours. The brain of the insomniac defies sleep with endless musings and ramblings, recriminations and replayed conversations.
Here, then, is a mini-Baedeker for the dream-deprived, designed to divert your gaze from the leering glare of the digital clock with soothing diversions and charming distractions, including:
- Pithy reflections on insomnia from thinkers and writers ranging from Job, Dorothy Parker, and Marcel Proust to Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Leadbelly
- Eye-opening facts about famous insomniacs, including Marilyn Monroe's explanation of her relentless wakefulness
- 85 topics of regret, remorse, resentment, and recrimination, from the age-old question "What if everything my mother told me turns out to be true?" to the timeless favorite "Why did I have unprotected sex with my personal trainer?"
- A tongue-in-cheek guide to sleeping aids, from herbs and pharmaceuticals to sex and Wagner
Synopsis
This lively collection of facts and fiction, quotations and quips, is designed to amuse, inform, and entertain the sleepless and distract them from the glare of the digital clock and the ramblings of their hyperactive mind. Illustrations throughout.
About the Author
Deborah Bishop lives in San Francisco and writes for Time Out, Chronicle Books, Virgin Publishing, and The San Francisco Bay Guardian, among others. She shares a bed with her husband, Michael, and cat, Stella.
Table of Contents
Contents Eyes Wide Open
An Introduction
Nights of the Living Dead
An Epidemic with No Vaccine
Pillow Pride and Prejudice
The Few, the Proud, the Sleepless
Wool Gathering
1,345 Sheep and Still Counting ...
To Sleep, Perchance to Die
The Fine Line Between a Little Snooze and the Big Sleep
Behind Twitching Eyes
The Mystical State of REM
The Hour of the Wolf
It's Dark, It's Cold, and Nobody Loves You
An Hour of One's Own
Exploiting the Midnight Hour
The Chronometer Within
Rock Around the Clock-at Your Own Peril
The World Between
You're Naked, You're Late, and You Can't Find That Door
The City That Never Sleeps
The Bronx Is Up and the Battery's Down
Forever Wakeful?
True Stories and Tall Tales
Why Worry Today When You Can Worry Tonight?
Eighty-five Topics of Regret, Remorse, Resentment and Recrimination
Pseudoinsomnia
Almost as Brutal as the Real Thing
The Waking Nightmare
Voices, Visions, and Other Distractions
Rocket Fuel
Tempest in a Coffee Pot
The Enemy of Sleep
When the Brain Works Overtime
Dead Men Waking
Maladies from the Fatal to the Merely Frightful
Sleep Hygiene: The Brutal Truth
Sage Advice and Sad Reality
0ne Sleeps, the Other Doesn't
And Other Grounds for Divorce
The Loneliest Club on Earth
Confederacy of the Comatose
Things to Do When the Sun Don't Shine
Channeling Your Wee-Hour Energy
The Curse of the Water Nymph and Other Harrowing Tales
Revenge Strategies with a Twist
Soporifics, from A to Z
A Potpourri of Ways to Seduce Sleep
SIeep-Related Organizations
On the Internet
Suggested Reading
Acknowledgments
Picture Credits