This is my current bedside book. It replaces William T. Vollman's 'The Atlas.'

For a long, long time, I read The Bible or The Way of Zen before bed. It was a nice preparation for prayer or meditation. This stopped being a good plan a few years back- I'm so tired by bedtime that I'm asleep within minutes. Blame SSRI's. Blame my career.

As a replacement- I followed WTV's reccommendation in the forward of 'The Atlas.' Keep a wide-open book by your bedside. Something you can dart into for five minutes and out. Something enormous, fertile, adventurous.

This book has been perfect: A series of several thousand- what to call them? Poems? Narrative fragments? Stories from lives? - short pieces- about historical figures and incidents. I was unfamiliar with the author before this book- and I've been extraordinarily interested in him ever since.

The tone is perfect for bedtime- wise, informed, playful. It's like having a grandfather with enormous perspective tell you a two minute story about Cleopatra as your eyes get heavy.

A pure delight. I can't imagine this book being displaced easily.