Newspapers, novels and lack of sleep

I seem to be suffering from a mixture of sleep deprivation and insomnia. So I am incredibly tired, but can’t actually for the life of me get to sleep before… Well okay normally I’m asleep by about half 12- but I’m just not meant to stay up too late. I need at least 10 hours of sleep or I am a grump- which probably explains a lot.

During my long evenings there seems to be only a limited amount of things I will do- one of which, bizarrely enough is go through old papers. On my journalism course we get a mixture of papers every day, some might say a dubious selection but I feel compelled to try and read them all.

Though because we are worked like kids in a sweat shop there is little time to read the papers during the day and sometimes for a couple of days- so what I’ve been doing is reading a weeks worth of papers in one sitting- mental I know.

On Monday night I was having a read of last Thursday’s Guardian and I discovered that I had missed the Guardian’s first book prize. I have pretty much loved anything that has ever won so I read on.

A familiar name crept up on the list of those who had previously won- Jonathon Safran Foer. It might sound odd but even reading the name of his 2002 text, Everything is Illuminated made me tingle with pleasure.

I think everyone has fallen in love with a book and this is mine. I was actually trying to read Crime and Punishment at the moment, but I might just give it up and re-read Foer.

So this is really just a plea for everyone to go and read it, I will be until this years winner lands on my doorstep. Romantic Moderns by Alexandra Harris, an exploration of English writers and artists during times of war.

It should keep me preoccupied when I can’t sleep anyway.