Sleepless Nights

Q: Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

No, you don’t have to buy the ebook to participate, but we do recommend it to get the most out of your club. There are several premium social reading features that are only available when you buy the ebook, like annotations, reactions, comment threads, resources, discussion prompts, and more, all embedded right in the text. It’s a unique and immersive way to read.

Q: Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

It’s annoying, we know. App store rules prevent us from selling directly in the app, so for now you can only purchase ebooks on our website. Don’t worry: when you purchase an ebook on the web, it’s automatically added to your bookshelf in the app.

Q: How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Kindle is a straightforward e-reader; Fable is an interactive e-reader that includes social features inside the ebooks. When you read an ebook on Fable, you can see and react to the text with others in real time. Start a discussion, share highlights and quotes, add emoji reactions—all of it lives right inside the book. It’s hard to explain and easy to see, so we recommend reading the free sample in one of our most active clubs to get a feel for it.

Q: Do you sell physical books too?

We do not sell physical books at this time. Wish we did? Let us know why here!

Q: Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

Most of our clubs are completely free to join. The only exceptions are clubs marked as “Premium” or “Career Development,” which do require a fee. You can find out more on each club’s detail page.

Q: How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

The first step is to download the Fable app. From there, you’ll be able to create your own private or public book club and invite others to read with you. Once your club is created, click on the plus sign under “Currently reading” and search for this book to add it to your club.

By Elizabeth Hardwick & Geoffrey O'Brien

Publisher Description

In Sleepless Nights a woman looks back on her life—the parade of people, the shifting background of place—and assembles a scrapbook of memories, reflections, portraits, letters, wishes, and dreams. An inspired fusion of fact and invention, this beautifully realized, hard-bitten, lyrical book is not only Elizabeth Hardwick’s finest fiction but one of the outstanding contributions to American literature of the last fifty years.

Download the free Fable app

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

77 Reviews

3.0

Amber's junkdrawer

Created 20 days ago

Kate

Created 3 months ago

“wow. guys. i lowkey hated this lmao. a shocking case of hateritis and not even remotely in a fun way. wow. where do i even start. the epitome of pretentious, no depth to any of her 'musings', nothing interesting to say really at all. the prose was ridiculous - 'the barn, or so i imagine of all barns, once existed for cows and hay.' ??????????? girl. come on now. also PUT THE COMMAS DOWN. also oh my god the FATPHOBIA i mean really do you really really have nothing more to say about BILLIE HOLIDAY than she was 'enormous' fifty times???? (how she's introduced: "she was fat the first time we saw her, large, brilliantly beautiful, fat") the laziest tactic of implying something about a person based on their size - everyone was fat fat fat and gross, even these people that she purportedly cared about? do you have no sympathy for someone you know who got into an awful relationship and had to go to a mental hospital beyond "oh, god, there she is, homely, homely, scabby with a terrible skin rash, heavy in her cotton housedress, lame in her carpet slippers, pushing to the door with painful, heavy slowness [...] her large, muscled arms hold me for a moment in a pounding embrace. [...] her legs are swollen, the large, aching ankles seem to groan as she pulls her weight along. she stands there, the great teeth throbbing in her round, gleaming face" - this is the whole book guys. like it's the only way she knows how to describe someone. do you have nothing more interesting to talk about besides someones physical appearance???? returning to the hateritis, she really gave off an air of thinking she was better than everyone. it made me laugh when she would critique someone for something she was obviously wrong about. the first moment i thought hm maybe this book isnt for me was on pg 25 when she's describing one of (apparently) her closest friends and calls him weird for wanting to brush his teeth after dinner every day????? like girl what are YOU doing??? do you not brush your teeth???? and then she implies this is impacting his sex life oh did she mention he's gay. i cannot articulate why this is homophobia but i know that it is. lmao. most of my annotations of this book are '???' 'girl what' 'huh' 'hello???'. 'age and her very long legs had given her the horse aspect' got an 'oh' from me. 'it is not certain that you may not have in some careless or driven way chosen to put yourself in the path of a murderer. maybe for pleasure - that is the worst' got a 'girl what'. so let me get this straight. one of your close friends just got MURDERED. and you're introducing the idea of victim blaming someone for getting MURDERED???????? i actually can't please i'm going crazy. now guys. on paper this is a book for me. i LOVE musings!! BUT THERE WERE NO MUSINGS HERE. just calling everyone ENORMOUS fifty times and oh yeah calling colonized indonesians that you apparently watch from your porch like evening entertainment a 'delayed bill' ??????????? HELLO?????????? i mean my god it was giving exhibitionism, taking the suffering of the people in her life, especially black and poor women!!, and putting it into this book and saying nothing about it and for what??? "a woman looks back on her life" so *your* life is the suffering of (marginalized) others? fodder for your book??? why do i give a singular damn what a wealthy white woman from kentucky has to say about these people? oh wait i dont. BYE.”

Kevin Garcia-Galindo

Created 3 months ago

Change and grow Multilayered Relatable Strong relationships

Si R

Created 4 months ago

Danell ☕️

Created 4 months ago

About Elizabeth Hardwick

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University of Kentucky and Columbia University. A recipient of a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is the author of three novels, a biography of Herman Melville, and four collections of essays. She was a co-founder and advisory editor of The New York Review of Books and contributed more than one hundred reviews, articles, reflections, and letters to the magazine. NYRB Classics publishes Sleepless Nights, a novel, and Seduction and Betrayal, a study of women in literature.

Geoffrey O’Brien is Editor in Chief of the Library of America. His latest books are The Fall of the House of Walworth and Early Autumn.   (May 2012)