Textbook Sleep

Like a scented candle for your ears: Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.Tonight, we crack open An Introduction to the History of History by James T. Shotwell, Ph.D., Professor of History in Columbia University, published in April 1922.A history of history: a double whammy of boring. No writing, no matter how good, can withstand my soporific voice.My gratitude to Project Gutenberg for the text. I love that they preserve and make available these books from long ago to… lull us to sleep.I’m joking! These are important works that deserve to be discovered.Time to ring our official Textbook Sleep bell three times, a hopeful harbinger of the sweet bliss of sleep.This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

Two wildly different cultures, two wildly different approaches to survival.Yet, recounted by the right author, and delivered by the right voice (mine), stultifying.Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.In this episode, we continue reading Medieval Cities by the French historian Henri Pirenne.Chapter IV describes the beginnings of two trading juggernauts, one built on a lagoon to protect itself from Hun invasion, and one built to invade by sea. One kept up at night by fear, the other inspiring nightmares.But we don’t have to worry about Huns attacking tonight, or trying to fall asleep on longboats in cold, stormy seas. Our only concern is if our pillows are plumped just the way we like them. My gratitude to Project Gutenberg for the text.Now we ring our official Textbook Sleep bell three times, not as an alarm, but as a summons to Morpheus to deliver us divine dreams.This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

The dark ages. Perfect nighttime reading.Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.In this episode, we read Medieval Cities by French historian Henri Pirenne, first published by Princeton University Press in 1925.As Pirenne puts it, it’s “an attempt to expound, in a general way, the economic awakening and the birth of urban civilization in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.”We’ll start with Chapter III, “City Origins.” There were no Ubers, and no place to get a pumpkin spice latte, or even an iced coffee. Wireless service was terrible, as it had not yet been invented.There were also pesky plagues.My gratitude to Project Gutenberg for the text.Let us ring the official Textbook Sleep bell to usher us into an age of sleep, before we emerge into a brighter day in the morning.This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

Jane Austen, teenage historian? Yup.Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.This episode finds us listening to Austen’s History of England, From the Reign of Henry the 4th to the Death of Charles the First, By A Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian. Okay, it’s not meant to be a typical history. Wikipedia explains, “Austen mockingly imitates the style of textbook histories of English monarchs, while ridiculing historians' pretensions to objectivity.”Anything Austen writes is filled with her humor and whimsy. That said, I hope my reading of it will nudge you into unconsciousness. It was written in 1791, when Austen was just 15, but not published until 1922. It was dedicated to her older sister Cassandra, who provided 13 illustrations for it. My gratitude to Project Gutenberg for the text.Let us ring the official Textbook Sleep bell three times, to celebrate this timeless sisterly collaboration. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.In this episode we’ll read aloud selections from Psychology of the Stock Market by G. C. Selden, published by Ticker Publishing Company in 1912. Subjects may include “The Speculative Cycle,” “The Panic and the Boom,” and a chapter mysteriously titled, “They”—“They” being put in quotation marks.As human nature has not changed terribly much since 1912, some or even most of Selden’s opinions may still be valid. But more than that, they will be boring. Really, really boring.Which is what Textbook Sleep is all about: Rediscovering yesterday’s dullest writing to make modern listeners fall fast asleep.My gratitude to Project Gutenberg for the text.Let’s ring the Textbook Sleep bells three times, in a salute to the opening and closing bell of New York Stock Exchange. May our investment in a sound night’s sleep ever appreciate over time.This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe