For many, bedtime is the best time of the day. Not for the sleeping, but for all that happens before sleep comes. Exciting things can transpire at the end of a long day in a comfortable bed.
Sometimes, it all depends on how much company you keep. I’ve always been one for multiple bed partners. They, after all, can make or break the final hours before sleep arrives, can be the difference between excitement and boredom, infatuation and indifference. And when one begins to shed its allure, you can always put your hands on another.
I’m talking, of course, about books.
Books are always stacked on my bedside nightstand, although none of them remain permanent residents. Some readers prefer to focus on one story at a time, but I tend to keep multiple books beside me. With three or four novels in progress at any given time, I know there will always be something to interest me, regardless of my mood.
At the moment, I’m sharing my bed with The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek and Thirteen Moons by Charles Fraizer, along with Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and Alice McDermott’s After This.
Who have you been sharing your bed with lately?
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Eric D. Goodman, Books Correspondent:
Eric’s column, Lit Bit, is published every Wednesday to Gather Essentials: Books. Featuring bits on writing, writers, books, and literature, Lit Bit will fulfill your literary longings.
Eric is a full-time, professional, published writer and editor. His work has appeared in local, national, and international publications, including a story in the current issue of The Baltimore Review.
You can find all of Eric’s Lit Bit articles at www.gather.com/litbit.
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Comments: 36
Kerry, I like Frazier's new book. Wasn't sure at first, but it's quite good. Reminds me a bit of Larry McMurtry. Have you read it?
I always have at least three books started in my bedroom and often have books strewn about the house in various states of completion...I am a confessed book a holic and ADORE the thought of spending countless hours (and dollars) in a bookstore.
Book orgy that is. I'm currently reading The Road by Cormac mcCarthy (I'm trying to read it fast because I want to read Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower as my next postapocalyptic book), The Secure Child by Stanley Greenspan, Challenging Behaviors in Young Children, Understanding, Preventing and Responding Effectively by Barbara Kaiser and Judy Skylar Rasminky.
I have yet to touch my April issues of Psychology Today, Early Childhood Today, and O. Not to mention that I've given away my recent Cosmo without reading it because I could care less about what the 10 things are the guys crave in bed.
Loretta, I haven't earned that medal yet. I'm about halfway through Jelinek's The Piano Teacher. There's a lot of good writing in there ... but she really makes you work for it!
Right now it is The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and 1776 by David McCullough.
Right now, they are Myla Goldberg's "Bee Season", Jane Austen's "Emma", Mark Dunn's "Ella Minnow Pea", and "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger.