It was the textbook for my university “Introduction to AI” course. Despite the fact AI can be a fascinating subject, this book manages to make it so incredibly dry and boring that I never made it more than five pages in without dropping off.

It even lived beside my bed for nearly a decade after I left university, just in case I ever had trouble dropping off.

Warning: I have an interest in AI, and this book made me doze off. I don’t know what i would do to someone with no interest in AI whatsoever, but in that situation even mere proximity to it might do the trick.

If you’re looking for it in the bookshop and start to feel unaccountably dopey then you’re probably close it it – I suggest you step back a few paces and scan the shelf until you see it. Then get someone else to buy it for you and deliver it to your house (you really don’t want to fall asleep in the High Street, and those delivery guys are professionals, paid to take such risks). Finally chug about a pint of coffee and see if you can quickly get it from your front doormat to under your pillow before you slip into a coma.