Sleepless Nights

FROM THE GREEN SPOON: I recently re-read Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick—a favorite book from my twenties—and found it just as fresh, and far more poignant now. It’s not only an apt title for any new parent, but it reads like something of a fever dream: in this lithe work of pioneering auto-fiction (published in 1980), Hardwick’s narrator looks back on her life—the waves of people, the shifting backdrops—and assembles a poetic map of memories. A good gift for a mom (or anyone, really).