Sleeping with Books

[The Bluestocking]

I love reading in bed before I go to sleep. Sometimes, I even fall asleep with the bedside lamp still on and a book on top of me because I tend to read until I can't keep my eyes open.

This morning, I burst out laughing because I was tidying up my bedroom and realised that not only is my bedside table piled high with books, but the other side of my bed (I have a Queen sized bed) also has about 3 STACKS of books!

Anyone else literally sleep with their books?

 

[Grimward]

Same here, although my stack doesn't usually get more than 5 high. Don't get the wrong idea, though; there isn't space for more than that, or there would be more!

 

[The Bluestocking]

And, *cringe*, on the other side of my room is a huge shallow woven rattan basket filled to overflowing with books that I hadn't bothered to carry back to the bookshelves downstairs.

Hello! My name is The_Bluestocking and I am a Book Addict...

 

[nixie]

I always manage to turn light out but the book always seems to stay in the bed.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I have a fairly extensive tbr pile in my bedroom. I tend to leave a book where I can find it during the night for those insomniacal moments.

 

[Mangara]

I too am a stacker, but my wife often makes me put them away.

I tend to have a SF Novel, A history book, A Non-Fiction and a Graphic Novel scattered round the house, in various places where I;ll sit and get a minute to read.

 

[Vince W]

I have a stack next to me in bed as well. If I look around there are stacks everywhere so I could almost reach out anyplace and pick up a book to read.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Ah, when I was a wee lad there was always a menagerie of books and other detritus in bed with me; you'd also find plastic dinosaurs, baseball cards (sometimes the mitt), and cool rocks I'd found...maybe even candy. My Mother used to wonder how I could sleep in such a knobbly, debris-filled bed.

I think that is one of the few unfortunate aspects (for me at least) of my having a Kindle--you don't see the wonderful piles of tbr books everywhere; I have a few dozen books all stacked up and ready to go, but they're all within this one little bundle of technology. We have tons of books in bookcases around the house, so that at least remains the same.

And my wife won't allow any other dinosaurs except me in bed these days.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I used to sleep with my book under my pillow every night. However, it is down the side of the radiator in the bathroom that the pile of books expands, because that is where I go with the book in the morning.

 

[Michael Colton]

Absolutely. My bed has at least three dozen books and pillows laid out on the other side. This has backfired a couple times if I roll over on them in the middle of the night, but I quite like having them there.

 

[The Bluestocking]

And my wife won't allow any other dinosaurs except me in bed these days.

I suddenly picture Cat's Cradle as a Saber Tooth Tiger leaping into bed...

 

[Grimward]

I used to sleep with my book under my pillow every night. However, it is down the side of the radiator in the bathroom that the pile of books expands, because that is where I go with the book in the morning.

Er, that sounds rather dangerous, Anya, books being flammable and all and radiators being...well...radiators. Then again, the only radiators I've ever known were the cast iron monsters in my grandmothers house...maybe yours don't get as hot.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Er, that sounds rather dangerous, Anya, books being flammable and all and radiators being...well...radiators. Then again, the only radiators I've ever known were the cast iron monsters in my grandmothers house...maybe yours don't get as hot.

I've been doing it for about 35 years - so far no fire.

 

[hopewrites]

Because of the kind of insomnia I have (had?) I trained my body to go to sleep without me. That way I could stay up all night reading.
but later in life I decided to try and tackle the insomnia thing, though reading never left my bedtime habits.

the books dont pile up in bed though, because as soon as I'm awake again, I've got the book to hand and am reading away. I usually keep book shelves next to the bed so that if I manage the will to put the book down before I pass out, I can put it on a shelf where I wont knock it over and lose my place. I've been known to leap out of bed growling so my sleep is rarely the kind where I wake up where I fell asleep, which makes it hard to find my place in the morning.

 

[The Ace]

Dad likes Mum to read paperbacks.

We always knew when Mum fell asleep because there'd be a bump and a curse. In 50-odd years of marriage, Mum's book never landed on the floor when she dozed off, but always caught Dad between the eyes just as he was drifting off.

As a bachelor who reads voraciously, the state of my bedroom is best left to the imagination.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The bed takes up most of my bedroom -- which would be roomy if a third of it wasn't my husband's home office -- so paths around the bed are very narrow (and dangerous, because I'm often bitten by a chest of drawers or other furniture as I go past), therefore there is no room for piles of books on the floor, but there are usually several trying to fall off my bedside table, and my Kindle is there, too. There is also a tall bookcase within easy reach of my side of the bed.

As a child, I would often read in bed after I was supposed to be asleep. I didn't have to do the classic flashlight-under-the-blankets routine. A bedroom light was always left on because I was afraid of the dark. Sometimes I'd wake up in a total panic after a nightmare, and it would take me a long, long time to get back to sleep. So what I would do was place an open book on the floor next to my bed, and balancing myself with one hand, hang part way off the bed to read. That way, if I heard footsteps, I could slip the book under the bed and haul myself back onto the bed where I belonged, in almost no time at all. I don't believe I was ever caught.

 

[Grimward]

I've been doing it for about 35 years - so far no fire.

Definitely different (better!) radiators then at your place. I swear those massive things at my grandmother's house would char any paperback touching them within the hour...

 

[tinkerdan]

I used to sleep with boxes of books under the bed. But that was because I had limited space and the best place to store them all was under the bed.

Now they are still under the bed, but it's in book cases in the room below the bedroom.

Never read in bed unless you count reading in a tent, in a sleeping bag, by the light of a flashlight: while camping.

 

[chongjasmine]

I used to sleep with the bible besides me.
That is the only book I sleep with.