Welcome to Ask The Book Doctor, a recurring series about books and reading them.
I like to put on my gym clothes nine hours before I actually go. I wake up, dress for the gym, and then sit at my desk blogging all day, because I know that if I do this, the likelihood of me actually going to the gym increases by 500 percent. If I put on another outfit, there is no way I will go to the gym, because this would require me to change into my gym clothes, and my brain hates me. My evil brain will accept any excuse to keep me from doing things that are good for me. So in an attempt to usurp my own brain, I outplay it. I lower the barriers to entry and make it as easy for me to go to the gym as possible. This is how I win.
Reading—like going to the gym and making my own food at home—is one of the many things that I love and are good for me, but that my brain decides at some point is the enemy. So I am always thinking of how to reduce the barriers to entry for books. I keep a lot of books in my house, and I always try to have at least one in progress. I keep books in every room so that they are always within arm’s reach. But today’s patient brought me a new kind of barrier to reading that I had not considered before. Let’s see if we can help him.
The Case:
So far in this column, I have only been asked to help patients in need of book prescriptions. But today’s patient is Jeff, who has a really specific problem. He does not need a book recommendation at this moment, because he can’t read anything right now! Jeff was blessed by the gods for many years and did not need glasses to read. He took great advantage of this honor and privilege by reading while laying down on his side, which seems very cozy. But now, in his forties, the evil reading gods have withdrawn his cozy lifestyle by destroying his vision. He had to get glasses!
Jeff said that “lying on the side of my head is uncomfortable with the glasses on, and I can’t get over the sense I am bending the frames.” And this is a big problem, because lying on his side in the bed is when he reads the most! He’s tried audiobooks, which would have been my first suggestion. He does not want to get contacts or surgery, which I find fair because of my own biases (not wanting to wear contacts or get surgery). “Do I need to get two monocles?” he asks.
While I love the idea of two monocles and very much encourage it, I have endeavored to help Jeff read on his side in bed without them.
The Prescription:
I do not often read in bed, or lying down, because I am addicted to being on a couch. That’s okay, because it is a doctor’s job to understand the plight of their patients and try to help them. For the past ten days, I have been reading lying down on my side, and I have to admit it is quite nice. I have a couple of problems with this position (mainly holding the book up if it is big, turning the pages, and getting too cozy and falling asleep), but I did understand your predicament immediately. My plastic glasses felt like they were all wonky and put too much pressure on my nose, and my metal glasses felt like they were digging into my head. Awful! You were right to come to me with this problem.
My first instinct was incorrect. I have seen a lot of videos for a new kind of glasses on my TikTok feed. In theory, you put the glasses on, then you lie down on the bed and, through the magic of mirrors, you can look up at the ceiling through the glasses and see the book (or your phone) on your stomach. Theoretically, this is good for your neck, and it seemed like the right idea, so I purchased one. It did have some benefits to my life: I looked insane and unsettling (which is a goal of mine) and my neck felt better. Upon putting them on, however, I realized this was useless to Jeff, who wants to be on his side. These glasses solved a problem, but not his.
My next instinct was that perhaps you were just using the wrong kind of pillow in bed. I tried every pillow in my house, but every pillow had the same problems! Nothing allowed my glasses to sit straight on my face while I held the book on my side.
Then I had a brilliant idea, I would create a pillow perfect for this by simply putting down two pillows and then nestling myself with my glasses in the pillow crack! This worked! But then I was uncomfortable in the bed because of the pillow under my shoulders. This was a bad position. Plus, it looked the stupidest of all my options, as you can see here:
So I innovated. I took a towel, folded it in half and rolled up both sides towards each other, so that I could create the same effect as the pillow crack. It looks kind of like a scroll in this position, and this worked great! Perfect, almost. I did this for a whole hour with no problems, and then I put the towel inside a pillowcase. I felt like I was on top of the world.
Because I was testing this on the couch, where I belong, I did not already have a pillow there for my head. But when I took my towel innovation to the bed, a problem emerged immediately: The pillow was already there! With the towel on top, it was too tall. So, I found a back-up option that may be the Goldilocks solution. I happened upon a company that makes a little pillow pad just for this. It costs $20, and it is much smaller than the rolled-up towel.
Personally, I will probably keep using the towel innovation, because it’s cozy, but I hope this fancy little pad solves all of Jeff’s problems!
If you need a consult from the Book Doctor for any of your book dilemmas, please email [email protected].