You’ve probably heard about the four basic tastes, or flavors, of foods: sweet, salty, sour, and savory/umami. What if we could come up with something similar books?
Tonight I’m thinking about three “F”s that are ingredients in many of my favorite books for bedtime: food, the familiar, and flying.
Basically if a book or a story revolves around (or is heavily flavored with) any of those three elements, it’s going to be a success in comfortingly putting me to sleep.
I’ve found some of the best bedtime books and stories are written by authors who devote time to FOOD: eating it, pursuing it, preparing it … having whole scenes, chapters or plot points that feature food. Pinkwater, Murakami, Bronte and Spillane are a few of my favorite writers who make it a point to feed us foody details.
Why does reading about food help us fall asleep with sweet dreams? Part of it is that eating and desiring food are relatable, mundane (but still the stuff ofdreams and fantasies), and comforting. It’s like counting edible fantasy-sheep where the author delights us with different recipes: cotton candy sheep, sheep made of mashed potatoes, meatloaf sheep … sheep served in a diner at midnight, sheep made for your breakfast by a whimsical creature-companion who mysteriously knows how to cook, sheep your wicked stepmother only served your siblings while all you could do is drool with envy at the sight on their plates.
Food is FAMILIAR; it’s something you can understand even as your eyelids droop and you might miss a few details. Which brings me to another core ingredient in bedtime reading: FAMILIARITY. Many people might find some of my favorite bedtime reading disturbing or otherwise not their cup of tea; I love reading Bukowski, for example, at bedtime. And one reason why is not because he writes filthy and offensive characters (though that may be part of it for me); it is in large part because he is familiar. I love reading Murakami, Bukowski, and Pinkwater because I am familiar with them. I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to get when I pick them up. The truth is a lot of us do not want to be bombarded with surprises or wade through totally unfamiliar lands when we’re trying to fall asleep, so writers with big catalogs often wind up as favorites. Some of the best books for bedtime are books you’ve read before, or are by someone you already know and love and recognize something of every time you dive into their writing.
The third “F”-word ingredient in books that help many of us fall asleep is FLYING or FLOATING. One of the most popular (if not THE most popular) kind of dreams people wish to have are flying dreams, so it stands to reason any story or book describing being transported in a dreamy way or via any mode of transportation where we can imagine effortlessly moving through or into another realm or landscape is great bedtime reading fodder.
The best books for bedtime induce a state of mind between wakefulness and dream, inviting us to consciously pass into someone else’s world of imagination, leaving behind our daily responsibilities and limitations, and guiding us with detached patience through dreamy liminal spaces into the unconsciousness of sleep and the subconscious wonderland of dreams. When writers present us with forms of travel and deliver us to different destinations, they provide us with some of the best transitions between living our waking lives and falling into dreamland.