Listen: Samuel L. Jackson narrates "Go the Fuck to Sleep"

BY JEFF MILLSJUNE 15TH, 2011, 8:00 AMComments (226)

Author Adam Mansbach, after repeated struggles to get his two-year-old daughter to fall asleep, once sent out a jokey Facebook post reading: "Look out for my forthcoming children's book, 'Go the Fuck to Sleep.'" The one-liner amused many of his Facebook friends, and the next thing you know, Mansbach had assembled some verses, and bootleg PDF copies of the profanity-laced opus were suddenly going viral. The thirty-two-page Go the Fuck to Sleep was picked up by a small Brooklyn publishing house, and even reached number one on Amazon's bestseller list ahead of memoirs by Tina Fey and Steven Tyler, well before its official publication date, which was yesterday.

So this children's book for adults is now a full-blown phenomenon, and has weathered a little controversy, as New Zealand Christian group Family First has lobbied New Zealand's booksellers not to sell the book. New Zealand Booksellers Association CEO Lincoln Gould responded, "It is not a children's book and booksellers will not be selling it to children. It is a very funny adult's view of how difficult it is to get children to go to sleep."

This all makes for an amusing story, but it gets better. None other than Pulp Fiction'sJules Winnfield himself, Samuel L. Jackson, has narrated the audiobook, covering a range of emotions and inflections while mustering all the Jacksonian menace you might expect. Almost as good as this is the news that director Werner Herzog, with his distinctive German accent, has narrated another audio version of the book, continuing to show his playful side after a recent Simpsons appearance. Who would be your dream narrator?