# What's Your Bathroom Reading Material?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 4, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693 "2005-10-04T04:04:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/1 "2005-10-04T04:04:03Z")
I think you can tell a good bit about a person by what books/magazines/etc. they keep on the tank for extended visits to the comfort zone.
For instance: My grandfather almost always had a few copies of Popular Mechanics laying about. He was a very intelligent and detail-oriented kind of guy. He liked to know how things worked. While he wasn’t an innovator himself, he could fix just about anything.
My Dad used to keep old National Geographics. Accordingly, he’s always been an outdoorsy person with a deep knowledge of fauna and flora.
I, on the other hand, currently have two of Uncle John’s Big Bathroom Readers sitting on top of last month’s Scientific American. So…I guess that makes me an irreverant sort with a great capacity for useless trivia who likes to brush up on his astro- and particle physics as well. I dunno.
What do YOU keep to read in the bathroom?
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### Author:  [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/2 "2005-10-04T04:07:56Z")
Maxim, National Geographic, a few catalogs, and a rotation of books (that are only meant for the crapper, cause otherwise, well, just ew).
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### Author:  [@supervenusfreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supervenusfreak)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/3 "2005-10-04T04:25:38Z")
**ew**
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### Author:  [@supervenusfreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supervenusfreak)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/4 "2005-10-04T04:27:16Z")
Oops I meant to capitalize that… **EW.** As in Entertainment Weekly.
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### Author:  [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/5 "2005-10-04T05:36:24Z")
Right now its the _Unauthorized Encyclopedia of Star Trek_.
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### Author:  [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/6 "2005-10-04T09:00:39Z")
_The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories_.
So I can scare the sh\*t out of myself. 😃
Also some back copies of **Smithsonian** , a couple of **Natonal Geographics** , several MechWarrior books (my husband’s), a couple of other ghost story anthologies…did I mention I have a bookshelf in my bathroom?
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### Author:  [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/7 "2005-10-04T09:06:54Z")
> [@supervenusfreak](#):
>
> Oops I meant to capitalize that… **EW.** As in Entertainment Weekly.
At first I thought you were poo-pooing the idea of reading on the john!
I generally have a book beside there; usually of short stories. Takes me a while to read them as it’s a few pages at a time at most. It’s the best way to get good value out of a book, I reckon!
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### Author:  [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/8 "2005-10-04T09:09:19Z")
Bollocks all. Why do you guys want to hang around in there?
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### Author:  [@Kitchen\_Wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kitchen_Wench)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/9 "2005-10-04T10:30:46Z")
I’m usually not in there long enough to justify keeping a stock of reading material, so when things are going slow I just pick up bathroom items and read product descriptions and lists of ingredients.
Wow. That was a long sentence.
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### Author:  [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/10 "2005-10-04T10:35:01Z")
Recent car magazines, normally. Sometimes, I’ll carry the book I’m reading in. And what Seeker74 does - I’ve read the back of my chaving foam can at least 5 times 🙂
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### Author:  [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/11 "2005-10-04T10:36:30Z")
**S** having foam, obviously.
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### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/12 "2005-10-04T10:56:25Z")
Ummm…
At the moment we have 2 copies of Total Film, the Culture section from this weeks Sunday Times and an Obs/Gyn textbook (I have exams coming up).
Probably not sending out great messages to any visitors.
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### Author:  [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/13 "2005-10-04T11:35:05Z")
Right now. . .
Chris Ware’s “Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth”. It’s a graphic novel.
I usually try to keep a light book in there. The last one was some history of the world series of poker, where they highlighted players and talked about interesting hands. It was boring as shit, and I just skimmed it. Jimmy Corrigan is good, though.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/14 "2005-10-04T12:15:55Z")
The comics section from the newspaper, or Reader’s Digest.
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### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/15 "2005-10-04T12:43:08Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#):
>
> a rotation of books (that are only meant for the crapper, cause otherwise, well, just ew).
I bought a brand new copy of The Silmarillion from Waterstones which was then “soiled”, as, unread, it was taken by a friend to the toilet to read. I protested but then my housemates demanded I give it to him as he said he would leave and go to his own house to read his own copy if I didn’t :rolleyes:
But as for myself, I bring car magazines almost always to the loo.
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### Author:  [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/16 "2005-10-04T13:35:38Z")
I used to keep a box of Trivial Pursuit cards in the bathroom. With magazines, the problem is that once you’re finished, you might have to stop in the middle of an article.
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### Author:  [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/17 "2005-10-04T14:00:10Z")
Usually one or more of the following:
Fine Woodworking
National Geographic
Discover
Style at Home
Some random fashion magazine
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### Author:  [@Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fromage_A_Trois)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/18 "2005-10-04T14:08:23Z")
An Onion annual, and several Viz annuals and comics. The thing about these is you can pick an article or strip that’s the right length for your visit. Although sometimes it takes so long to find one that’s the right length, or that you haven’t recently read, that you’re finished anyway.
Gary Larson books are good, too.
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### Author:  [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/19 "2005-10-04T14:12:11Z")
Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers!
(Although once in a while, I spot an inaccuracy therein.)
Assorted magazines, the occasional book, sometimes the paper. Lots of magazines.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-bathroom-reading-material/324693/20 "2005-10-04T14:20:38Z")
Wow, are we the only ones who do this?
We don’t keep books in there, it’s too small and looks messy. Whatever book is in our hand or nearby when we head in is the one we take.
And we don’t spend a lot of time in there, particularly not me. I just can’t stand to be without a book.
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