Imagine that, for some misguided reason you’ll later regret, you decide to take a course in Gothic art. Perhaps you had heard it was a “gut,” an easy A—look, it’s not Biochem. And then you are assigned a book about the subject by noted art historian Andrew Martindale. It’s not him that’s the problem, it’s you. You can’t get through a single paragraph without starting over. It ain’t TikTok. It’s learned and dense and long. It uses words like “transepts.” And “pulpitum.” And “portals,” which we’ll turn into portals to a good night’s sleep. Because this is Textbook Sleep, and no one can withstand an onslaught of insights about the Dark Ages at night in your own comfortable bed. Cursed insomnia curses to hear us begin, and retreats, knowing that for tonight, it is banished.

Thanks—if that’s the right word—to writer Polly Walker Blakemore for sending me this sleep-inducing tome.

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