What's in your bathroom library?

Which literature do you happen to have on hand, right now, for reading while attending to your excretory necessities? This is a snapshot of what I happened find accumulated in my bathroom today:

Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols.
Corbridge-Patkaniowska, M. Polish (Teach Yourself Books).
Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.
Mitton, Jacqueline. A Concise Dictionary of Astronomy.
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities.
Raun, Alo, et al. “Languages of the World: Boreo-Oriental Fascicle One.” Anthropological Linguistics Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1965).

I’m going to reshelve these now. Maybe a couple months from now I’ll check back in with a different assemblage of books.

the shipping news
the physics of immortality
the universe in a nutshell
Dante’s Inferno
the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind

Great topic!

I currently have The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour. I figured that I didn’t want anything too mentally taxing detracting from the business at hand.

Playboy, Penthouse, and a Bible.

Just kidding.

There’s nothing in the bathroom. How can you read while you poop?

My new housemates haven’t put any reading material in the bathroom, so I leave political leaflets and printouts of articles there in hopes of finding a captive audience.

“The Mad Bathroom Companion Book” full of old articles in mad and very funny, that really is the name too, I swear.

The November This Old House, a fairly recent copy of Network Computing, and the Speedway Motors 2002 catalog.

-mdf

…PSM…

More of the Straight Dope by Cecil Adams. That and the latest issue of The Advocate magazine.

Hmmm…

“Bathroom”…I know that word.

“Library”…yes, that one too…

But put them together, and it just…doesn’t make any sense.

What is this strange concept you put before us, Jomo?

I have every one of “Uncle John’s” Bathroom Readers. They will be the cause of my hemmorhoids later in life. Also, assorted work related journals, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, John Grisham’s The Summons , as well as a Ross-Simons catalog. And the ingredients list on a shampoo bottle.

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban

Reader’s Digest (3 issues from a long time ago)

The Art of War Sun Tzu

Are you kidding???
How can you not read on the pot!!!

I’ve got 3-volumes-in-one of Uncle John’s, plus a bunch of very old Reader’s Digests.

I have two of Scott Adams’ Dilbert Books, "Shave the Whales"and another whose name escapes me but could possibly be “It’s obvious you won’t survive by your wits alone”. There is also a brochure from Trek America advertising holidays I don’t plan to actually go on. There is a brochure from my credit card provider describing awards that I qualify for … most of which are of no use to me LOL Every day I sit there and think… I really need to update this collection of toilet-reading material. Yet do I update it? No. I’m such a lazy git!

Great, I get to post my anti-bathroom reading rant all over again, TO WHIT:

It smells. The seat is not particularly comfortable. The light is not the best.

Go in, drop your pants. Sit down, do whatever it is you have to do. Clean yourself up, wash your hands. Then, go find a nice comfy chair, with a good light, in a room that doesn’t smell like shit, and read to your hearts content.

And if it takes you so long to do whatever it is you need to do that you can read more than an obituary column, eat more fiber.

For those of you with irritable bowel syndrome or some other medical condition that requires you to camp out in the bathroom for days on end, my apologies.

I have a book that I probably will never read and an electronic yahtzee game. I’ll also bring in whatever I’m currently reading if I’m in the mood to read.

  1. The current issue of Eos and Physics Today and a few back issues of each.

  2. Big Secrets, Bigger Secrets, and Biggest Secrets by William Poundstone.

  3. Old Mr. Boston’s Bartender’s Guide

and

  1. A copy of the 2002 World Almanac. The 2003 copy is not allowed into the bathroom until a 2004 copy is purchased.