Textbook Sleep

Jim Nolan

Fall asleep to the world's dullest textbooks. jimnolan1.substack.com

  1. Textbook Sleep #25: Business English

    3D AGO

    Textbook Sleep #25: Business English

    Business English is just like English English, only more twisted and tortured and obfuscatory. If you’re good at it. Fortunately for our purposes, it is also—almost without exception—incredibly boring. Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast that reads aloud boring public domain textbooks to help you fall asleep. Tonight’s textbook, from 1914, is Business English by Rose Buhlig of Tilden High School in Chicago. We will begin with Part I, Chapter I: Interesting Words. But they are not at all interesting. They will certainly not keep you from falling asleep, practically unable to awaken as if their multisyllabic monotony has cast a magical spell over you that not even the kiss of a handsome prince or princess could break. A dog or cat might do it, however—even a Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast can’t do anything about that. Let us begin with our new bell chimes that expunge care and worry from all those who hear them. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    42 min
  2. Textbook Sleep #24: Orchard, Garden, and Field Insects

    MAR 12

    Textbook Sleep #24: Orchard, Garden, and Field Insects

    Have you ever had a hankering to learn about the Codling Moth? The Cankerworm? The Hessian Fly? Of course not. They are not only deadly to crops, they are deadly boring. In other words, perfect subjects for Textbook Sleep, the podcast that reads aloud boring public domain textbooks to help you fall asleep. It has come to my attention that some listeners play Textbook Sleep while doing chores, as something to relax to. We counsel against this, as you may find yourself waking up on the floor next to the washing machine or on top of the vacuum cleaner. We are, after all, a Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid—nonprescription but habit-forming. Thus we continue tonight with Agriculture for Beginners by Burkett, Stevens, and Hill, first published in 1903. You will likely be asleep before we get to “the troublesome Chinch Bug.” Few will make it to the Twig Girdler. Let us begin. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    50 min
  3. Textbook Sleep #23: Market Gardening Including Peas and Tomatoes

    MAR 5

    Textbook Sleep #23: Market Gardening Including Peas and Tomatoes

    Welcome to another episode of Textbook Sleep, the podcast that reads aloud boring public domain textbooks to help you fall asleep. My voice is also boring. When I speak to people on the phone, it’s not unusual that I hear snoring and have to hang up. Tonight we read again from Agriculture for Beginners, by Burkett, Stevens and Hill, first published in 1903. We’ll be hearing about hotbeds, Cold-Frames, celery, tomatoes, striped cucumber beetles and something called dewberries, whatever they are. To be more accurate, I’ll be hearing about them, you will be fast asleep. Maybe you will dream about dewberries, about putting a dollop of whipped cream on them, or baking them into a pie. I hope that you do not dream instead about striped cucumber beetles. Let us proceed with Horticulture, Section XXV. Pull up the blanket. Adjust your pillow. And sleep my pretties, sleep. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    48 min
  4. Textbook Sleep #22: Agriculture for Beginners

    FEB 26

    Textbook Sleep #22: Agriculture for Beginners

    Welcome to another episode of Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid. We read aloud boring public domain textbooks to help you fall asleep. This time we’ll be exploring Agriculture for Beginners, by Burkett, Stevens and Hill, first published in 1903. Today, few of us work in agriculture, the profession that keeps us alive and yet we take for granted. The information contained herein may be the most valuable to humankind ever assembled in one book, unless we intend to go back to being hunters and gatherers, and there are no Pringles in that world, so forget it. That doesn’t mean it’s not boring—there is an entire chapter on Feed Stuffs and seven pages on the Cotton-Boll Weevil. My eyelids are already drooping. A listener in California writes, “Now I am suffering from somnia,” and perhaps you will be, too. Let us get to it, then. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    40 min
  5. Textbook Sleep #21: More Experimental Psychology by Harvard's Edwin Boring

    FEB 19

    Textbook Sleep #21: More Experimental Psychology by Harvard's Edwin Boring

    Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast, combs the planet to find the most boring public domain textbooks to read aloud to help you fall asleep. Tonight we continue with one of our greatest discoveries: A History of Experimental Psychology by Professor Edwin Boring. In 1950, it sold 16,765 copies, an indication to me that 16,765 people were trying to self-medicate their sleeplessness by reading it before bed. You, on the other, can simply listen to my voice, which has a soporific quality that sometimes renders people unconscious as I speak to them at parties. They drop like a stone. Surely it’s not my conversational chops that’s lacking. Let us let Professor Boring bore us to sleep, then. We’ll begin with his description of the third decade of experimental psychology, going all the way back to 1880. If you hear any long pauses, it’s possible I myself have nodded off. It’s a risk I take. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    43 min
  6. Textbook Sleep #20: Experimental Psychology

    FEB 12

    Textbook Sleep #20: Experimental Psychology

    Well, we have hit the mother load of boring textbooks to read from: A History of Experimental Psychology by—wait for it—Edwin G. Boring, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. You would have thought that this poor man would have tried to overcompensate for his family name with lively writing on a subject others might find interesting. But no. Boring is boring, at least to me, and I hope you will find his 1929, 710-page tome sleep-inducing as well. With this ponderous discovery, Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast enters a new, even more powerful realm of soporific communication. Dare we now call it Textbook Sleep, the Ultra-Strength Sleep-Aid? Okay, let’s pull up the covers. Or maybe, the lever on the La-Z-Boy. It’s sleepy time. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    46 min
  7. Textbook Sleep #19: The Machinery of the Universe

    FEB 5

    Textbook Sleep #19: The Machinery of the Universe

    The Machinery of the Universe. Hang on, that actually sounds interesting! Not to worry—it’s not. It’s physics, but with an interesting title—academic bait and switch. But for the purposes of Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast, this 1915 public-domain book by A. E. Dolbear, A.B., A.M., M.E., Ph.D., Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Tufts College, is just right for settling us in to a long winter’s nap. Your Apple Watch may wonder if you’ll ever wake up. It’s just the machinery of the universe, working perfectly to power you to sleep. Let’s start, shall we? This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    40 min
  8. Textbook Sleep #18: Booze and Bread

    JAN 29

    Textbook Sleep #18: Booze and Bread

    Welcome back to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum Strength, aural sleep aid, in which I read from soporific public domain textbooks. Subjects that once put you to sleep in the classroom or library, now putting you to sleep in bed. On tonight’s syllabus we’ll listen to another chapter of General Science by Dr. Bertha M. Clark, this time on fermentation. Like few subjects, fermentation foments sleep. It won’t kill you to listen to it, but it is deadly boring. Pull up the covers. It’s time to begin. This recording will end quietly. Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe

    35 min
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About

Fall asleep to the world's dullest textbooks. jimnolan1.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Jim Nolan
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jim Nolan
  • Show Website
    Textbook Sleep