Customer Reviews

Yawn!: Bedtime Reading for Insomniacs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ms. Stern is a saint. My wife and I have both had bouts with sleeplessness due in part to our "work-a-day" schedules. YAWN appeared on the bed stand one night and Tillie (my wife) and I have read one another to sleep using Ms. Stern's wit and wisdom on many occasions. After tapping into a bit of Ellen Sue's psyche with YAWN, Tillie brought home another of Ms. Sterns books,"Loving the Imperfect Man." WOW! New understanding, rekindled relationship, and new found love. No more sleepless nights. We are happy! Thank you Ellen Sue Stern!

When I can't sleep I turn to this book. It knocks me out and at times I find myself laughing myself to sleep. A great gift for insomniacs or a reference tool for annoying partners who want to talk before bed. This will put them to sleep in a heartbeat. Yawn is a real sleeper!

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Few things are more frustrating than lying awake at night. All insomniacs know the cardinal rule for getting some Zs: Don't just lie there waiting for sleep - do something about it.
In Yawn: Bedtime Reading for Insomniacs, author Ellen Sue Stern invites you to:

Lean back into a down pillow and consider what golf strategies should be employed in the rain.
Nestle in more deeply as you commit to memory the particulars of the "correct" way to eat spaghetti.
Yawn softly while you peruse the fine print of airline ticket sale literature.
Consider in detail the physiological reasons behind male pattern baldness.
Pepeat what NASA tells its astronauts to help them fall into weightless sleep.
You might not remember everything you've read, but you may find the answers to your dreams - a good night's sleep.

Yes, mostly this stuff is as boring as she asserts. It is all public domain stuff, often lifted directly off the web, then compiled to fill a quick and easy book. She misses the point several times - a chapter of The Odyssey is included largely because she does not get it.

But the most egregious error is the chapter on John Glenn's conversations with Capcom during the last orbit of his first flight. She fails to set up the context (I do not think she was aware of it). You see, John and Capcom are having a discussion about John's heat shield, which may have been damaged during takeoff and therefore the capsule may burn up during re-entry. Capcom wants John to take manual control and then not jettison the jet pack covering the heat shield. But they do not want to say why. So they do this, John obeys, reports a "fireball" and is incommunicado for the next several minutes. Given recent events, and the fact that we have three astronauts on the space station whom we do not know when, how or if we will get down, maybe her choice is not as sleep inducing as she thought.

Yet another con job. What are Sterns cedentials??????????? I have tried to read Sterns sophomoric attempts of realationship enlightenment: "Loving an Imperfect Man" and "He just doesn't get it". Now she attempts to make a buck claiming she can help you sleep. Stern must be well connected to get this drivel published.