Free Space A column by the staff of Freestyle AMANDA KENNEDY, 16 As soon as the blinding light of my room flickers on at 5:45 a.m. each weekday, I pledge to hug my pillow and fall asleep earlier each evening than the...

More than 11 million prescriptions for sleeping pills are issued in Britain every year. One in three of us suffers problems sleeping. Worries about the addictiveness of many traditionally prescribed drugs have spawned a growing market for non-habit-forming "natural" remedies that can be bought...

The appearance of any novel by Ruth Rendell is a cause for celebration. But I am particularly pleased by A Sleeping Life … because it sees the return of Chief Inspector Wexford, investigating, this time, the unfathomable death of an apparently respectable, well-heeled, middle-aged woman who appears, once the investigation has begun, to have had no past and, indeed, no existence. The resolution is a little disappointing and rather obvious (the same trick was used years ago by Josephine Tey in To Love ...