BOOKS, SLEEP, TALK

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 63, 8 December 1931, Page 10

BOOKS, SLEEP, TALK

Dean Inge’s Suggestions CURE FOR INSOMNIA A suggestion that doctors should prescribe books by certain authors in cases of persistent insomnia was made by Dean Inge at the annual conference of the Library Association at Cheltenham. “I have reason to believe,” he said, “that my own works are especially valuable in these cases, because I have often found my wife sleeping peacefully with one of my own books upside down on her knee. “Reading may become a self-indul-gence. When I am paying an afternoon call and my wife is shaking hands to say good-bye (which means that the call is about half'over), my hands itch to take up any.books which happen to be lying on the drawing-room table.” It might be a suggestion to the railway companies that they should label some carriages “Talking,” instead of “Smoking,” which nobody objected to, so that those who wished to read in peace would not be compelled to listen to the incessant and senseless cackle of those who could not be silent. Sir Bruce' Bruce-Porter, speaking on hospital libraries, said that the companionship of books for the sick was vitally necessary. “The varied tastes of readers in hospitals are surprising. Men in distant lands have often found amusement in studying the pages of Bradshaw and planning trips for their own home leave. In one military hospital during the war there was at one time a great demand for prayer books and testaments printed on India paper. Someone discovered later that the inspiration was not a religious revival, but a shortage of cigarette papers."