Program podcast

At the end of the summer holidays, Michael spends one blissful night under the stars with his much-loved wife and children.

Michael, Jenny and the three children move from the small town of Gunning to Melbourne, where Michael starts work as a school teacher.

Michael ponders the similarities between sleep and death, and relates an incident when he was robbed while he was metres away in bed - dead to the world.

Before he became a father, Michael was for many years a Catholic priest.

The arrival of baby twins, less than two years after that of their older sibling, sends Michael McGirr in search of an ancient practice for which bed is the ideal setting. It's called sleep. In this book, both a personal journey and a profound exploration of one of life's true constants, Michael muses on the many benefits of sleep, mourns its demise, and explains aspects of its strange personality. And despite their reluctance to ever all be asleep at the same time, he celebrates the three small children who came to him after a long vocation as a Catholic priest and brought him such joy and tiredness.