I have a lot of books on my nightstand, but the most valuable is the one I like to read that never fails to put me to sleep within three to five pages. Previously, it was Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Currently, it’s Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell. These are books that have good sentences but structures that knock me out — not in the “wow” sense, but the “ZZZ” sense.

When my wife can’t sleep she reads A Bird in the Hand, a book of chicken recipes.

Whatever works, man…