Hodder to publish bedtime stories for stressed adults

Hodder & Stoughton is publishing Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out Adults - a collection of “soothing and consoling best loved stories and poems aimed to calm an anxious mind before sleep”.

Featuring an introduction by journalist Lucy Mangan, and writings from authors including Chekhov, Wilde, Wharton and Saki, the book is presented as the perfect gift for stressed-out insomniacs. Hodder has world rights, as an IP project curated in house by Black herself in co-operation with Mangan, and will publish as a £16.99 hardback on 18th October.

Hannah Black, publisher, described Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out Adults as "a gentle antidote to our screen-addicted, strung-out, sleep-starved lives”, encouraging readers to “lose yourself in magical, mysterious and tender realms that will accompany you to your own sweet dreams".

Mangan added: "Imagine reading from a book without a similar list of responsibilities crowding the words out of your brain, without a tide of anxiety pulling down the fictional world as fast as you try to build it. This book is a small attempt to recreate these lost joys for stressed out adults, driven mad by the demands of home, family, work and the hopeless porous boundary between all three."