I suppose it says something, possibly profound, about the state of the world, that there are now so many apps available which promise stories that will send the reader or listener to sleep. You can choose to listen to stories from the boring to the beautiful, from the fantastic to the hypnotic: or to find collections containing pieces only five minutes long, to ones where the average listening time is an hour.

However, the reader’s voice may be mellifluous, and the story un-alarming, but I have to concentrate too hard on those fleeting words to relax into sleep. So I have always been, and will remain, a bedtime reader, preferably of real books, though sometimes I do resort to the library on my iPad.

I am careful about what sort of books I allow on my reading list. I give high priority to old favourites, some from my youth, or…