Book description
Sleep remains one of the most mysterious areas of our lives. We all
sleep, maybe not as much as we would like, but it's a universal human
experience, as necessary as breathing and as nourishing as eating. But
how much do we really know about sleep? What happens in the third of
our lives when we're slumbering? How have sleep, dreams and nightmares
been interpreted over the centuries? Why do so many people feel that
they are deprived of sleep? How did our ancestors use to sleep?
Sleep has its own unexpected and rich story - ranging across
science, history, literature and philosophy. It's been a cultural
battleground between those who see sleep as a gift from nature and
those who have seen it as an idle waste of time.
In an overcrowded, exhausting 24-hour culture, sleep has become a
valuable, rationed commodity. It's something that people are thinking
about more than ever before.
This bedside-table companion responds to this interest in sleep,
providing a mixture of short, browsable pieces and more extended
sections. The style is informed, thoughtful and entertaining, in
keeping with the subject matter. It is intelligent but playful, quirky
and amusing.
Any study of sleep has to savour the delight of the long lie-in, the
sexual musk of night time; discuss the history of the bed, the origin
of pyjamas and how the Elizabethans saw the pillow as a sign of moral
weakness and examine why the Italians called the bed the 'the opera of
the poor'.
Sean Coughlan is a journalist and author, currently writing news and
features for the BBC News website and freelancing for the Guardian and
other newspapers. His features have included recent interviews with
Richard Branson, Desmond Tutu, inmates in Brixton Prison, Nick Park,
Tony Robinson and lots of politicians. He is also currently a columnist
for the BBC on family matters. For six years, he wrote a weekly funny
column about money for the Guardian, which produced a spin-off book,
Fear and Loathing in My Bank Account,
published in 2002. He is 44 years old, lives in London and has three
daughters at primary school. Hence the interest in sleep.
