# Bathroom reading
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 13, 1999, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783 "1999-09-13T14:47:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Misanthrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misanthrope)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/1 "1999-09-13T14:47:00Z")
Four questions:
Do you read while in the bathroom? If so, what do you read?
Do men read in the bathroom more often than women? If so, why?
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D’oh
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### Author:  [@kellibelli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellibelli)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/2 "1999-09-13T14:52:00Z")
trashy novels…(sittin’, or laying in the tub.)
Even my kids read on the john. 🙂
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### Author:  [@BunnyGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BunnyGirl)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/3 "1999-09-13T14:53:00Z")
If I could read and wash my face at the same time, I’d do it. I read everywhere, bathroom included. My latest bathroom read is the collected essays of Montainge. Very good. Greatly enjoying them.
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### Author:  [@StStella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StStella)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/4 "1999-09-13T14:56:00Z")
I’m like Bunny, I real ALL the time. I go nuts if there is nothing in the house to read and resort to re reading favorite books if nothing else is handy. However, in the bathroom I just browse through magazines. I wait until I really HAVE to go before I venture into the bathroom, so I don’t spend all that much time on the pot. My husband on the other hand should have an entire library in their considering how much time he spends in their. Of course, I really can’t be sure what he’s doing in there anyway…but I think that could be another thread. OK, too much info, I think I should just stop typing now…
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### Author:  [@Doug\_Bowe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_Bowe)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/5 "1999-09-13T14:59:00Z")
Short stories and articles are ideal for bathroom reading. That’s what “Dr. John’s Bathroom Reader” was made for. Along with any of the almanacs (Old Farmers included).
Readers Digest also comes to mind.
Men want to take something to read to the bathroom. Those that don’t, wish they had.
That was a conclusion reached by a group of “imagineers” working for Sansabelt slacks over 30 years ago. This is why the very first Sansabelts included a little ad sewn into the fly.
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### Author:  [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/6 "1999-09-13T15:08:00Z")
I rarely read in the bathroom. Husband does, though. _Guitar Player_ magazine, and other mags of that type. If, for some reason, I find that I’m going to be in there for a while, I’ll ususally pick up one of his mags.
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### Author:  [@Globe-trotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Globe-trotter)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/7 "1999-09-13T15:17:00Z")
I also read everywhere, even when eating! (I love it, especially since I couldn’t do it when I was a kid!). I’ll usually just carry whichever book I am reading with me to the bathroom. I can live without the TV and the PC (not too long, though) but take all my books away and I become unbearable…not a stretch, I know. 😉
* * *
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Alexandre Dumas the Younger (1824-1895)
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/8 "1999-09-13T15:28:00Z")
Bathroom reading is the reason THE NEW YORKER was created. I couldn’t imagine reading it anywhere else.
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Uke
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### Author:  [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/9 "1999-09-13T16:04:00Z")
I’m a newspaper junkie, and I find if I don’t take advantage of small intervals when I can, I end up with a couple of days backlog.
So, I often pull an Al Bundy, but only at work. At home, I just get in and get out without lingering. Sometimes, I’ll take the mail in there to sort through.
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### Author:  [@Pooch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pooch)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/10 "1999-09-13T16:13:00Z")
I put a bookshelf in my bathroom. Guests seem to take a long time in there and always exit with something to say.
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### Author:  [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/11 "1999-09-13T16:32:00Z")
I always read in the bathroom. My tastes are wide and varied. Usually, I just read whatever I’m already reading, but I must admit to keeping a copy of the World Almanac by the can for back up reading material.
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### Author:  [@Gr8Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gr8Kat)
#### Post date: [September 14, 1999, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/12 "1999-09-14T05:23:00Z")
Readers’ Digest and Entertainment Weekly. I also have a copy of the Book of Lists in the bathroom, though I’ve learned lately to take most of it with a grain of salt. My sister used to keep Playboy in her bathroom (I assume for the articles) until she got religion.
* * *
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [September 14, 1999, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/13 "1999-09-14T05:38:00Z")
I always read in the bathroom. Newspapers and comic books are what I read most often, but sometimes full-fledged books as well.
* * *
Chaim Mattis Keller
[ckeller@schicktech.com](mailto:ckeller@schicktech.com)
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/14 "1999-09-13T18:23:00Z")
In my house we don’t even refer to it as the bathroom anymore, it’s the library. My usual accompniment is Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest (I WILL win that sweepstakes!), or a newspaper.
I was going to say I read “whatever I can get my hands on”, but you deves would have too much fun with that.
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### Author:  [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/15 "1999-09-13T18:47:00Z")
I will read whatever is in there and within my reach. I have actually sat there reading the backs of shampoo bottles.Usually i grab something to read. Mostly i read my Japanese Gardening book, my plant encyclopedia (pretty pictures :)),or some of the language books I have.
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### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/16 "1999-09-13T19:09:00Z")
I read anything that I can. If I could read during sex and get away with it…ohhh…I’ve said to much… 😉
We have a stack of magazine, sales cataloges and how-to repair guides in our bathrooms. I have loved Reader’s Digest since I can remember and have recently discovered Smithsonian, but am to cheap to shell out the mula for a subscribtion. Alot of our junk mail is read through and susequently 86’d while in the bathroom, too.
Primarily I read books on the throne. It has caused me ( and I discovered the same thing with a friend of mine) to have the urge to poop every time I am in the Library or book store. It has happened since I was a little girl. I would go to the library, Mom would sit in the car and settle in for the wait and out I would come running with only one book and say urgently, WE NEED TO GO HOME NOW. Then I discovered the library has a bathroom, uncomplicating matters greatly. As I’ve gotten older, if I am ever constipated, all I have to do is walk through a Borders and BINGO, I have a great poop in their bathroom. Too bad you can’t take a book in there. I have Pavlov’d myself from years of reading on the toilet by either the smell of the ink or paper to have my brain say " Book in hand equals need to flush out the system."
Anyone else have the same phenom?
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### Author:  [@Globe-trotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Globe-trotter)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/17 "1999-09-13T19:12:00Z")
Wasn’t there a Seinfeld episode with George reading a book in a bookstore’s bathroom? I forget the details now.
* * *
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Alexandre Dumas the Younger (1824-1895)
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### Author:  [@BunnyGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BunnyGirl)
#### Post date: [September 13, 1999, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/18 "1999-09-13T19:14:00Z")
Shirley, Oy, can I relate! We’ve trained ourselves well, haven’t we??!
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### Author:  [@Felinecare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Felinecare)
#### Post date: [September 14, 1999, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/19 "1999-09-14T03:23:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Primarily I read books on the throne. It has caused me ( and I discovered the same thing with a friend of mine) to have the urge to poop every time I am in the Library or book store.
Here I thought it’s the walk to the library that causes me to always make the bathroom my first stop, but I now know the truth. Pavlovian conditioning is a scary thing!
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [September 14, 1999, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bathroom-reading/7783/20 "1999-09-14T03:37:00Z")
Several Foxtrot collections and _Our Dumb Century_ by the Onion. I like quick simple reading since I don’t tend to make a project out of using the bathroom.
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“I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
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