Do you remember the days of childhood when you would pull the covers over your head and read by torchlight until sleep took over? Blissful times and hungry minds. Friday 14 March 2025 is World Sleep Day – a day and night on which the need for sleep is acknowledged in more than 70 countries worldwide. Yet in these troubled times, sleep is not always so easy to come by. If you’re taking a little more time in bed than usual tonight, switch of your phone, close off your screens and set the scene for a great night’s sleep by reading a chapter or two of your favourite book.

Our suggestions:

From our fiction list, new and archive:

The Perfect Passion and Thinking of You, a new series from Alexander McCall Smith

Frankenstein – Mary Shelly with an introduction by Jenni Fagan

Queen MacBeth – Val McDermid

Blood and Gold – Mara Menzies

Non-fiction:

Islands of the Evening – Alistair Moffat

Edinburgh the Autobiography – Alan Taylor

Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary Queen of Scots– Rosemary Goring

The Salt Roads – John Goodlad

The Gravity of Feathhttps://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-gravity-of-feathers/ers – Andrew Fleming

Isolation Shepherd – Iain Thomson

Poetry:

Unwritten Women – Hannah Lavery

Moder Dy – Roseanne Watt

In a Time of Distance – Alexander McCall Smith

Real Boys – Thomas Stewart

Or dive into our full lists by following the links above.