The book beside the bed competes with the life already lived that day.

Reading at night is not really up against other books. It is up against a day that has already spent your attention, so whatever is left arrives tired and full of what happened. The book has not become less interesting. You have simply come to it with less to give, which is true of most evening ambitions.

Rather than blaming yourself for the unread pile, try meeting the book somewhere else. Ten minutes in the morning, or on a bus, before your attention has been used up. And keep something beside the bed that suits the state you are actually in at that hour.