Sleepless: Women, Creativity and Rethinking the Night

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A revelatory exploration of insomnia which shows how women throughout history have found healing, creativity and courage at night - and how you can too.

In the winter of 2020, Annabel Abbs experienced a series of bereavements. In the wake of this grief, Annabel kept herself frenetically busy by day - organising funeral arrangements, caring for her children - but by night, she couldn't sleep. A more profound wakefulness than Annabel had ever experienced before, this period of sleeplessness led to an unexpected revelation: her Night Self.

Once Annabel stopped fighting her insomnia, the night became a place of creativity, reflection and liberation - as it has been for women throughout history. From the radical fifteenth-century astronomer Laura Cereta, to subversive artist Louise Bourgeois, to Virginia Woolf, to the activist Peace Pilgrim who walked day and night across America for twenty-eight years, women have found sanctuary, inspiration and even power in darkness.

Journeying from the darkest corner of the Arctic Circle to Singapore, the brightest city on Earth, Annabel sets out to discover her Night Self through travelling, drawing, writing, stargazing, night-swimming and more. Free from the anxiety of getting 'eight hours', Sleepless shows that embracing the night can open up a whole world of possibilities - even, perhaps, sleep.

Author Bio

Annabel Abbs is an award-winning writer of highly researched fiction and non-fiction. As Annabel Abbs, she is the author of Windswept: Why Women Walk, voted a top ten 2021 travel book. As Annabel Streets she wrote 52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time and co-wrote The Age-Well Project: Easy Ways to a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life. She has written for a wide range of titles, including the Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Tatler and the Paris Review, and is a Fellow of the Brown Foundation. She lives in London and Sussex with her husband and four children.