Boring Books for Bedtime Readings to Help You Sleep

Boring Books for Bedtime Readings to Help You Sleep

Boring Books for Bedtime is a weekly sleep podcast in which we calmly, quietly read something rather boring to silence the brain chatter keeping you awake. Think Aristotle, Thoreau, and whoever wrote the 1897 Sears Catalog—mostly nonfiction, mostly old, a perfect blend of vaguely-but-not-too interesting. If you're on Team Sleepless, lie back, take a deep breath, and let us read you to rest.

Episodes

June 5, 2023 44 mins

Let’s finish our tour of the sleepy world of spices, learn about grains of paradise (my favorite medieval spice), and reveal the connection between saffron and…crocodiles? Sure, why not.

 

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Let’s relax and sleep with more about apple history, creating hybrids, and the validity of Van Mons’ theories of propagation. Yeah, I don’t know either, but I guess he was big in Belgium.

 

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Let's relax with a subject near and dear to your reader’s heart—cats! Drift off to the intelligence of felines, the first cat show, and drama at the Cat Club. Scandalous!

 

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May 15, 2023 55 mins

Let’s return to Aristotle’s classic on the purpose of life. What’s it all for, anyway? No real answers here tonight, alas, but at least he can help us sleep through the confusion.

 

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Let's return to the flower-filled fields of sleep and learn about insect-charming orchids, blistering buttercups, and pinks of the killing kind. Nature is a cruel mistress!

 

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In more from this sleepy history, we take a tour of the glories of Greece and Persia, the brief blaze of Alexander, and the intellectual legacy of the Golden Age. Dreamy!

 

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Let’s fall asleep to schooling in the fine art of drawing. We learn how to hold a pencil and draw a line, but only after the kind of lengthy introduction at which 19th century writers excelled. My favorite!

 

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Let’s sleep through the stress of Tax Day with more from this capital classic, learn the history of money, how diamonds are dumb, and why a cow’s worth of salt is…really too much salt.

 

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April 10, 2023 52 mins

Let’s take a sleepy browse through this marvelous catalog, just in time for spring. Vegetables, flowers, and novelties for the garden abound from America’s finest purveyor of plants.

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In this remastered episode from the wayback, let’s take a relaxing trip aboard the good ship Bounty, which maybe you’ve heard of? It’s all breadfruit and bad weather (so far). Sleep ahoy!

 

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Let’s return to the British Museum of the 19th century and complete our sleepy tour of birds of the world, from ducks to dodos. It’s case after case of curiosities for your tired mind!

 

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Let’s relax into delicious dreams with this guide to confectionery. Learn the correct stripes for stick candy, the construction of “strawberry rock,” and the stages of sugar. Sweet!

 

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Let's return to more sleepy science and ponder life on the moon, the makeup of meteorites, and the long, strange lives of comets as they wander through our universe. Spacey!

 

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Let's begin a sleepy trip through the mountains of France, in which our novice author invents a sleeping bag, buys a donkey, and answers the question, “What could go wrong?”

 

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Let’s trip back in time two years ago (!!) and relax with this newly remastered paean of praise from one transcendentalist to another. We should all be so lucky to be spoken of like this.

 

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February 20, 2023 49 mins

Let’s relax and sleep with more from Mrs. Post as she instructs us in the art of conversation, thinking before we speak, and avoiding unforgivable pretentiousness. Useful!

 

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Drift to sleep with science as Darwin himself defines natural selection and the interconnectedness of all things. Also, we hear the archaic word “humble-bees,” which is adorable.

 

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Read “The Origin of Species” at Project Gutenberg here: ht...

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This week let’s be lulled to sleep by deep thoughts about the nature of matter, and whether things exist if we’re not thinking about them. Who knows! It's philosophy.

 

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Read “The Problems of Philosophy” at Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827

 

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Let’s return to the sleepy sands of Egypt and learn all about tombs and pyramids. Secret passages, sarcophagi, and ghostly snacks will give your dreams something to feast on.

 

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Read “Manual of Egyptian Archaeology” at Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14400

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Let’s stitch our way to sleep with this handbook to the intricacies of embroidery. We’ll work our way through some basic stitches, learn a bit of history, and admire the art of craft.

 

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Read “Art in Needlework: A Book About Embroidery” at Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenb...

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