You’re really asking for it when you name your book “Snooze” or “Why We Sleep.” A reviewer is tempted to dismiss the former by saying that it lives up to its title and the latter by replying, “Because of doorstop tomes like yours, pal!” Fortunately, the respective authors of these books — Michael McGirr and Matthew Walker — turn out to be good company: congenial, often funny narrators, each of whom, in his own way, offers a thoughtful tour through the still dimly understood state of being asleep.
Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, even goes so far as to pre-emptively acknowledge his book’s potential soporific powers. An evangelist for the mental and physical benefits of sleep, he writes, “Please, feel free to ebb and flow into and out of consciousness during this entire book. I will take absolutely no offense. On the contrary, I would be delighted.”
Read more from The New York Times | October 10th, 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/books/review/snooze-michael-mcgirr-sl...