Book solves Christmas present problems

Variety abounds in this collection of stories, writes Willie Campbell. 

BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWN-UPS
Ben Holden (ed)
Simon & Schuster

By WILLIE CAMPBELL

After editing two poetry collections for adults, Ben Holden has moved into an "occasional'' collection of bedtime stories.

He uses his own experience as a reader to his children and to himself as guides to selection.

Effective division into seven sections linked to the stages of sleep gives structure to the offerings. Each section has research information about sleep itself, or the traditions of storytelling, and the readings then reflect and exemplify that information.

The variety and range of offerings is apt and varied. There are long sections from books, short stories and poems. Traditional and contemporary pieces rub shoulders. Both fiction and non-fiction appear. Guest authors choose favourites of their own.

For avid readers there will be many familiar and favourite pieces present, the Neil Gaiman "Sandman'' selection sits alongside Michael Cunningham's reinterpretation of Jack and his beanstalk. Nora Ephron offers a piece on ageing (or is it dreaming?) while Seamus Heaney's "Rescue'' takes us into drifts of sleep.

Margaret Drabble chooses a long Walter De La Mere poem that delighted her in childhood and Diana Athill reflects on our need for stories in an afterword, and considers this book will solve her Christmas present problems. You might like to follow her suggestion. It is certainly worthy of a place on your bedside table.

Willie Campbell is a Dunedin educator.