Sleep Better Books & Book Recommendations - Fable

“I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.”
- Jorge Luis Borges

Skip to Sleep Better book selections

The Fable community knows that reading enhances mental performance, improves your vocabulary, and even makes you more empathetic. But did you know that reading can also help you sleep better?

There are two basic kinds of books that can help you sleep — self-help books and relaxing books that lull you to sleep. The trick is to find the right type of book — and we are here to help!

The great writer Jorge Luis Borges once wrote "I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.” Surround yourself with some of these books tonight!

What books should you read for better sleep?

Start by reading a few self-improvement books focused on sleep habits and optimizing your sleep.

These books are filled with tips and advice from experts, to help everyone sleep better, from babies to grown-ups.

Why We Sleep

By Matthew Walker

Matthew Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity.

Yoga Nidra Meditation

By Pierre Bonnasse

A practice to consciously explore wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep, and the very structure of your emotional, mental, and energetic bodies.

The Happy Sleeper

By Heather Turgeon

Child sleep experts Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright show parents how to be sensitive and nurturing, but also clear and structured so that babies and young children develop the self-soothing skills they need to sleep better.

The Sleep Revolution

By Arianna Huffington

The Sleep Revolution both sounds the alarm on our worldwide sleep crisis and provides a detailed road map to the great sleep awakening that can help transform our lives, our communities, and our world.

Radiant Rest

By Tracee Stanley

Develop a powerful practice of deep relaxation and transformative self-inquiry with this essential guide to yoga nidra, accompanied by downloadable audio meditations.

Dreaming Yourself Awake

By B. Alan Wallace

A guide to harnessing the power of lucid dreaming and Tibetan dream yoga to achieve increased creativity and profound self-knowledge Some of the greatest of life’s adventures can happen while you’re sound asleep!

At the same time, there are tons of great narrative books that can be very soothing to read at bedtime.

They are often written in an easy, conversational tone that makes it easy to get lost in the story.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out Adults

By Various

From classic stories by Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant and Katherine Mansfield, to friendly tales of our childhoods, to poetry, this lovingly curated book will soothe a tired mind and gently carry you to the peaceful land of sleep.

One Thousand and One Nights

By Hanan al-Shaykh

The mesmerizing stories of One Thousand and One Nights tell of the real and the supernatural, love and marriage, power and punishment, wealth and poverty, and the endless trials and uncertainties of fate.

Fables

By Aesop

This collection is the 1912 translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, composed of two hundred and eighty-four of Greek fabulist and storyteller Aesop’s fables.

Book recommendations to help you sleep better, now on Fable

Maintain healthy sleeping patterns and gather a collection of lulling lore with these book clubs and folios of poetry, tales, short stories, and guides.

Sunset Stories: Classic Poetry

Try our special “Sunset Stories” Folio to help you fall asleep

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Read the beloved fantasy books that inspired a Netflix series.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Read this collection of nine mind-bending stories by speculative fiction master Ted Chiang.

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