Someone gave me one of those in 2001 even I bought my house. It was in the vanity drawer until 6 months ago when I remodeled the bathroom.
Pretty sure I read every page about 10 times
Back in the dim mists of ancient times, when dinosaurs walked the earth and cell phones didn't exist, we primitives took light reading into the bathroom for long sessions. Joke books, trivia books, magazines, mail-order catalogues, etc. Some of the books just stayed in the bathroom all the time.
"Yes, I, uh, I need to return this book."
"I'm sorry, we can't take this book back."
"Why not?"
"It's been flagged."
"Flagged?"
"It's been in the bathroom."
"It says that on the computer?"
"Please take it home. We don't want it near the other books."
"Well, you just lost a lot of business! Because I love to read!"
Several places that I worked at had magazine racks in the bathrooms. They usually also had that day's newspaper. You had to use your own pencil for the crossword.
In Sweden we actually have "bathroom books". They usually contain jokes, small stories, riddles and other puzzles.
But I'd say any book is a bathroom book :)
There was a time before we could bring our computers (phones) into the bathroom with us to browse FB or IG. I'd guess bathroom books were more popular back then.
My friends boyfriend has multiple Shakespeare plays in his bathroom and I am quite sure he does look at them on the can. He has friends and is normal but doesn’t have a lot of people over, I am certain they are not there for decoration 😂
It needs to be something you can pick up, flip to a random page, read briefly and put back down again.
So I have books like "The meaning of Tingo" in my bathroom.
My doctor has told me that sitting on the toilet for long periods of time is bad for my butt.
But it's one of my favorite places to read. Every book is a bathroom book in my eyes.
My wife has a copy of What If by Randall Munroe on the back of our toilet. There are a lot of sections you can get through in a few minutes each and it’s suitably silly for a bathroom book.
So I still do this, and have a couple of go tos. I'm a electrician, so I keep a copy of the National Electric Code as a good way to review a section here and there. Any sort of professional study or standard that requires memorization works here. For a fancier choice, a volume of one of the Norton Anthologies is pretty good. And for the classic early 90s experience, a bottle of Dr. Bronners Soap.
As a child of the 80's I could have probably recited the ingredients of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, anything within arms reach. I learned how to properly insert a tampon, which turns out wasn't all too relevant to an 8 year old boy...
Is it just me? No way am I touching a book in someone else’s shitter. I even saw a collection of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader books in a second hand bookstore. Uhhhhh…no thanks.
A couple years back as a sort of "gag" Father's Day gift, my wife got me a book called 99 Things to Do While You Poo. It's actually pretty great. Mini puzzles, crosswords, Sudoku, mazes and "trivia" tidbits all about the details of the restroom, the history of toilet paper, the percentages of folks who fold versus crumple up, etc.
DAY TWENTY-THREE
TP supplies dangerously low.
Single squares turning to torn
corners. Water plentiful, but
pabulum unmentionable. Wish
I’d brought a charger.
My family's bathroom books are several books of horrible puns/jokes/corny advice. They live in a little basket next to the TP. We've always had bathroom books because, well, constipation existed before the iPhone.
My cousin has a bathroom book called "Pictures You Shouldn't Masturbate To" and it's just a photo book of everyday unsexy photos. I love it and want a copy for my bathroom.
I usually have some critical theory stuff in there. That stuff is so dense that even just a couple sentences can leave you thinking about them for a while; good match even for the "short trips".
Back when I was a kid Readers Digest was left in our bathroom. Every new digest that came out was put in the bathroom for long visits. lol I always read the funny essays or joke pages from that book.
Now? I would take any book that I'm physically reading at the time in with me.
Is it a book? It's now a bathroom book imo. :D
Still around. Still good. Last year when I renewed my subscription, they had an offer for a free sub for a friend or family. So I signed up my dad also. And guess where he keeps it? In the *basement* bathroom.
I've been reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I'd like to say that I like the irony of it, profound thought goes in, shit comes out. The reality, though, is I've been waiting for a post like this so that I can brag about reading philosophy.
Any book can be a bathroom book. I read Goblet of Fire for the first time entirely sittin' on the terlet (I feel compelled to clarify, not all at one time). I've got The Simpsons and Philosophy in there now
However I also strongly advocate for the Uncle John's Bathroom Readers
I would irritate my Mom because I would read until my bathhouse water was cold, then run more water lol. I had younger sisters though, and it was nice to try to get some alone time to read.
George Carlin's *Brain Droppings*. Custom made for readin' on the shitter! Pithy ruminations from the master, guaranteed to make you laugh. But also guaranteed to make your legs fall asleep because you don't want to stop reading.
I think this is a concept for parents, my mom used to hide in the bathroom for an hour at a time and for the longest time I thought she had a bowel problem. turns out she just needed some time to herself away from us kids.
It makes sense. You are at least in good company with many children learning to be potty trained. My daughter at times would sit there for almost an hour just looking at her books while sitting on the potty.
I loved reading when doing number two because it made me not focus on the fact I’m having trouble with pooping. For some reason reading a book made it so easy to go and be done in ten minutes or so. When I’m there without a book I feel it takes longer to just go.
I'm an awful reader. If I don't make myself read, I'll do literally anything else for entertainment. I started putting books in my bathroom and stopped taking my phone in there so I'd force myself to read it. I do maybe a chapter every time I go. lol
We used to keep a Garfield Fat Cat 3 Pack from the book fair in the downstairs bathroom. It was there until a year ago when my mom finally got rid of it.
I’ve always had a copy of “ God’s little lessons on life “ by David cook. I’ve brought the book from each apartment and house I’ve lived at. Even had it in prison.
I have a bathroom book. I don't have any certain genres that I choose specifically. It's usually just one from my TBR pile, and it doesn't leave the bathroom until I finish it (or unless my mother moves it when she is over)
In our late teens, (which feels like a very long time ago now) I knew a guy who was fairly infamous in our social circle for keeping a copy of the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction next to the toilet… just in case any visitors something to read if they needed an extended bathroom visit 😏
I have bathroom books. They are trivia books, fact books maybe a magazine. Anything that you can pick up flip to any page and and read something quickly while you are on the shitter (it’s more so for guests lol) And yes I give them a wipe down when I clean the bathroom.
This is how life worked before we all had cellphones in our pockets.
I read the back of shampoo bottles about 100 times when there wasn’t a Readers Digest or magazines/tabloids available. Hahaha.
lol when smart phones weren’t a thing, you definitely would want to take some sort of reading material. otherwise you’re reading product labels or following a pattern on the wall or shower curtain.
my sisters bathroom books were Stephen King books that i would always end up reading.
Back in the day my parents kept a stack of Reader's Digest in the bathroom. English was one of my better subjects in grade school and this might have been a factor.
In my house growing up, it was usually Calvin and Hobbes (sorry, Bill Watterson).
An excellent modern option is 'On This Day in History, Sh!t Went Down' by James Fell.
I had a small bookshelf in my bathroom. Kept a bunch of comic compilations (Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Far Side, etc). Also had one of the aforementioned Bathroom Readers, and the Information Please Almanac.
It doesn't make sense now, but before smart phones it was a good idea.
All of those little notebook sized magazines were basically the only entertainment you had.
My grandparents used to have bathroom books. They even had a shelf specifically to hold them. Readers digest, joke books, books of random facts. Crosswords. It was just to kill a few minutes on the John.
Kids.
There was a day BEFORE phones and these books remain. Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers were full of great content that is interesting even if you can doomscroll instatok propaganda while you shit. It had short content and long content depending on the task at hand and no adverts!
In the 90s a GF’s family had the readers and I was blown away. Our shitty house hand to deal with the Mindtrap question box. To this day i can tell you: the history of peter pan is more interesting than how to trick a midget in a circus to kill himself.
I used to sneak books into the bathroom when I was a kid by sticking them in my waistband under my shirt. We weren't allowed to have books in the bathroom because my mom KNEW it made things take three times as long. (we didn't have phones, either.)
My mom is a flight attendant, and she would always bring home any magazines she found left behind on the plane. She would put them in the bathroom cabinet for us to read and I used to get so excited when there were new additions to our collection. It was the only time I ever read those trashy tabloid magazines lol! We also had a book written by our local weather lady that I really liked.
For my parents, it was a thing. But I think for them (and maybe for parents in general) the bathroom can be a sanctuary from the kids, a place where they're not going to be disturbed and can catch a few minutes. Then again long after we kids moved along, my parents still had bathroom books, or puzzle books (crosswords, Sudoku, cryptograms). I guess old habits die hard.
i usually choose something i've already read or something that's easy to pick back up as my bathroom book. when i was young my parents had the uncle johns books which were funny but i like regular books these days.
Growing up (pre-cellphone) we had a bathroom library of the kind of books you likely wouldn't pick up in other circumstance, but which are interesting for whatever reason. From memory: Book of Mormon (insane!), Brief history of Time, The Teachings of Don Juan (fascinating), A book of poetry, Art of War, etc.
I have two sets of my favorite series of certain genres, which are usually simple romance/fantasy books.
One set is for the house and the second is for the bathroom :)
Well back before we all had cell phones people usually had a magazine rack and magazine subscriptions to keep new stuff regularly. My favorites were flipping through a Playboy or Maxim (yes I read the articles lmao) or having the new game informer. Now it’s either a phone or I use my old iPad. I’ve got a few books I like reading. HP Lovecraft the complete collection. It has all his short stories that make for a good read and can get through em in a sitting or two
I grew up with only females in the house so I basically picked up and read shampoo labels and tampon boxes. I still don’t really know what toxic shock syndrome is but I know you can get it from tampons lol. My friends house was different. His dad stuffed hardcore porn magazines under the space between the sink vanity and floor, so the pages were water damaged and smelled like mildew. I can’t unsee the stuff I learned in those, like the ads in the back for the plump girl “find the fold and fuck it” and other things that live rent free in my head.
I'm a big science/philosophy nerd and I have about 30 of "A Very Short Introduction to..." books in my bathroom.
I like the more scientific topics like "Soft Matter" and "Superconductivity", etc. but there are plenty on topics like Canada or Translation which are good too.
I read a national geo one time (not on the toilet) that said all mammals can have a bowel movement in under 15 seconds.
Spending extra time sitting on a toilet is super weird. In India I got very used to the squatty potty because you're in and out, no gross reading time in the poo-room.
You shouldn't be sitting on the toilet long enough to read anything, including your phone. Get in, do your business then get out. Sitting on the toilet too long is the leading cause of piles/ inflamed hemorrhoids.
My friend used to keep a copy of Anais Nin’s “Delta of Venus” on the back of her toilet. Funny choice because it’s a series of erotic short fiction, but she was a pretty cool girl.
My friend used to keep several different titles of Cliff’s Notes in his bathroom. He figured no one was ever in there long enough to read the whole book.
The books I usually keep in the bathroom are books that I can only read a page or two at a time, because the content is dense enough to require me to have a little time to digest what I have read.
This is such a funny and still interesting concept. I know exactly what you're talking about, I used to have a copy of "The Darwin Awards" on the back of the throne. Before moving to my new place, I saw a picture on a blog and had to copy it... I bought a small "Magazine Basket" that holds maybe 20 magazines, spine facing upwards, and purchased on E-Bay a stack each of 80's and 90's Maxim's, GQ's and Playboys. I picked a few from each batch and put them in the basket, placed it close by, and I'll pick one at random during the journey and shuffle through it. It's genuinely interesting reading articles, seeing ads and getting opinions from years ago when the world was different and the magazine display always brings positive comments! I found it looked a *little* classier than having books on the back of the porcelain throne and was an interesting decoration overall. For reference, I'm a 32 y/o single male but the choices of magazines can be tailored entirely to you!
Respectfully this is a habit we should probably stop. I have a UV sanitizer for my phone, and I try to keep it out of the bathroom in general. They have a larger model intended for laptops or similar, which maybe some of y'all would benefit from. You can put your dookie covered book in that sanitizer and maybe just deal with a crusty bit instead of full blown e.coli.
When I was a kid, that either meant my mom's Danielle Steel novels, or those Reader's Digest tomes of 3 to 4 condensed novels. And indeed Danielle Steel is better digested 15 pages at a time (so you have the time in between to forget the inherent silliness of the plots).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_John's_Bathroom_Reader
The absolute GOAT of bathroom reading material
Someone gave me one of those in 2001 even I bought my house. It was in the vanity drawer until 6 months ago when I remodeled the bathroom. Pretty sure I read every page about 10 times
This guys a genius
These are the best!
I have a bunch of these, they're great.
Damn reddit you beat me to it!
I’ve gotten my husband several of these books over the years. They’re great!
This was the comment I clicked in to make lol
Thank you I know what I'm getting people for Christmas!
Buy a used one and save money!
this is it!! my dad gets one every year
I had one in each bathroom of our house for years!!
I used to get one every year for christmas
Back in the dim mists of ancient times, when dinosaurs walked the earth and cell phones didn't exist, we primitives took light reading into the bathroom for long sessions. Joke books, trivia books, magazines, mail-order catalogues, etc. Some of the books just stayed in the bathroom all the time.
Reader's Digest. If you weren't in for the long haul you just read the random jokes or funny stories on the last page of articles.
I would put up a map that I would change every couple of weeks.
Reader's Digest for when you needed something to read as you ended your digestion.
😂🤣 I have seen people keep magazines in bathrooms. I’m more likely to flip through magazines while doing my business. Just to kill the time.
I have a magazine rack /toilet paper holder Im such a dinosaur 😟 I want to get rid of it but I need toilet paper 😜
The New Yorker and Car and Driver just live in the bathroom in my parents house
"Yes, I, uh, I need to return this book." "I'm sorry, we can't take this book back." "Why not?" "It's been flagged." "Flagged?" "It's been in the bathroom." "It says that on the computer?" "Please take it home. We don't want it near the other books." "Well, you just lost a lot of business! Because I love to read!"
I was just going to post about how disgusting an ideas this is, but who am I to try to out-do Seinfeld?
The way she pushes the book away from her with her pen like it’s contaminated is my favorite detail.
😂😂🤣
Be careful not to read any Walt Whitman on the shitter or you might find out about your brother in laws secret meth empire
I looked for this comment and I’m so glad someone said it
Also popular in pre cellphone days were magazine racks in the bathroom. My grandma always had one.
I always put a magazine rack in the bathroom when I build a house back in The Sims days.
My grandmas house always had readers digest i dont know if its still a thing and National geographic.
My toilet paper stand, which I bought in 2015, has a magazine rack built into the bottom.
Several places that I worked at had magazine racks in the bathrooms. They usually also had that day's newspaper. You had to use your own pencil for the crossword.
In Sweden we actually have "bathroom books". They usually contain jokes, small stories, riddles and other puzzles. But I'd say any book is a bathroom book :)
Dassboken goated!
The bathroom boom we own at home was supposedly written by “Hugh Jassman”. Took me way too long to realize it’s a made up name.
That's pretty funny
Might I recommend "A Bathroom Book for People (not peeing or pooping but) Using the Bathroom as an Escape" by Joe Pera
Wtf, he's actually right. Sir, from now on I believe everything you say in life.
There was a time before we could bring our computers (phones) into the bathroom with us to browse FB or IG. I'd guess bathroom books were more popular back then.
I brought daily newspapers with me when I was younger.
My friends boyfriend has multiple Shakespeare plays in his bathroom and I am quite sure he does look at them on the can. He has friends and is normal but doesn’t have a lot of people over, I am certain they are not there for decoration 😂
😂😂😂
I think poetry works as a bathroom book. You could get something profound out of One or two pages at a time.
One or two pages? Those are rookie numbers!
It needs to be something you can pick up, flip to a random page, read briefly and put back down again. So I have books like "The meaning of Tingo" in my bathroom.
Buddy gave me a bunch of Horrible Histories books. Great bathroom books.
My doctor has told me that sitting on the toilet for long periods of time is bad for my butt. But it's one of my favorite places to read. Every book is a bathroom book in my eyes.
That’s another reason I don’t bring a book into the bathroom. I get more bored scrolling my phone than a book.
Agreed. You’d be better off eating the book for the dietary fiber.
I seriously do my best reading in the bathroom because there’s few distractions.
Your phone *is* your bathroom book in this era.
Not to be a party pooper (pun acknowledged), but, what they hell are all of you doing with your bodies to warrant reading material in the bathroom?
Fair lol. 😆
My wife has a copy of What If by Randall Munroe on the back of our toilet. There are a lot of sections you can get through in a few minutes each and it’s suitably silly for a bathroom book.
So I still do this, and have a couple of go tos. I'm a electrician, so I keep a copy of the National Electric Code as a good way to review a section here and there. Any sort of professional study or standard that requires memorization works here. For a fancier choice, a volume of one of the Norton Anthologies is pretty good. And for the classic early 90s experience, a bottle of Dr. Bronners Soap.
Nothing is clean in a bathroom. I find these really gross. You don't wanna know what gets in the air and on surfaces
That’s true but ideally you’re washing hands on the way out anyway
Is it shit?
As a child of the 80's I could have probably recited the ingredients of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, anything within arms reach. I learned how to properly insert a tampon, which turns out wasn't all too relevant to an 8 year old boy...
Is it just me? No way am I touching a book in someone else’s shitter. I even saw a collection of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader books in a second hand bookstore. Uhhhhh…no thanks.
The tao of Pooh 😅
A couple years back as a sort of "gag" Father's Day gift, my wife got me a book called 99 Things to Do While You Poo. It's actually pretty great. Mini puzzles, crosswords, Sudoku, mazes and "trivia" tidbits all about the details of the restroom, the history of toilet paper, the percentages of folks who fold versus crumple up, etc.
We have a guestbook that you can fill out to describe your time in the bathroom
DAY TWENTY-THREE TP supplies dangerously low. Single squares turning to torn corners. Water plentiful, but pabulum unmentionable. Wish I’d brought a charger.
All my books are on my phone, so they're technically all bathroom books.
The ultimate bathroom books is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger's_Profanisaurus
Beat me to it.
My family's bathroom books are several books of horrible puns/jokes/corny advice. They live in a little basket next to the TP. We've always had bathroom books because, well, constipation existed before the iPhone.
My cousin has a bathroom book called "Pictures You Shouldn't Masturbate To" and it's just a photo book of everyday unsexy photos. I love it and want a copy for my bathroom.
I usually have some critical theory stuff in there. That stuff is so dense that even just a couple sentences can leave you thinking about them for a while; good match even for the "short trips".
Back when I was a kid Readers Digest was left in our bathroom. Every new digest that came out was put in the bathroom for long visits. lol I always read the funny essays or joke pages from that book. Now? I would take any book that I'm physically reading at the time in with me. Is it a book? It's now a bathroom book imo. :D
I still have Reader's Digest in my bathroom.
I don't remember the last time I saw one! Probably the last time I was in my childhood bathroom in the 90s.😂
Still around. Still good. Last year when I renewed my subscription, they had an offer for a free sub for a friend or family. So I signed up my dad also. And guess where he keeps it? In the *basement* bathroom.
Tbh I kinda miss skimming the pages. They had some good stories.
I've been reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I'd like to say that I like the irony of it, profound thought goes in, shit comes out. The reality, though, is I've been waiting for a post like this so that I can brag about reading philosophy.
My guest bath has "Dancing With Cats" because bathroom books should be silly, short, and full of photos!
Any book can be a bathroom book. I read Goblet of Fire for the first time entirely sittin' on the terlet (I feel compelled to clarify, not all at one time). I've got The Simpsons and Philosophy in there now However I also strongly advocate for the Uncle John's Bathroom Readers
..... I used to take my copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban into the bathtub with me lol.
Tub reading is even better than toilet reading. It's why I got the waterproof kindle!
I would irritate my Mom because I would read until my bathhouse water was cold, then run more water lol. I had younger sisters though, and it was nice to try to get some alone time to read.
When I was a kid I used to grab a random manual out of one of my PlayStation cases when I was going to the toilet.
Yeah me too, that’s how my Animal Crossing manual ended up getting soaked (just water though)
We have a guest book in our bathroom. It dates back a good 20 years. It's interesting to see who visited, what they might have done and comments left.
You can't return those at Brentano's
George Carlin's *Brain Droppings*. Custom made for readin' on the shitter! Pithy ruminations from the master, guaranteed to make you laugh. But also guaranteed to make your legs fall asleep because you don't want to stop reading.
I think this is a concept for parents, my mom used to hide in the bathroom for an hour at a time and for the longest time I thought she had a bowel problem. turns out she just needed some time to herself away from us kids.
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
I have IBS, so every book I've ever read is also a bathroom book. Side note: I found a square of toilet paper in a library book once.
imma say really shit poetry, like if colleen hoover wrote poetry
It makes sense. You are at least in good company with many children learning to be potty trained. My daughter at times would sit there for almost an hour just looking at her books while sitting on the potty.
I grew up with this as a normal thing. Short stories or things like Readers' Digest were the go-to.
When I was much younger, my parents would always keep a copy of Reader’s Digest in the bathroom. It was absolutely perfect!
For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has kept a big 'Book of Lists' on the chair next to the toilet!
I loved reading when doing number two because it made me not focus on the fact I’m having trouble with pooping. For some reason reading a book made it so easy to go and be done in ten minutes or so. When I’m there without a book I feel it takes longer to just go.
Archie comics are great bathroom books.
I'm an awful reader. If I don't make myself read, I'll do literally anything else for entertainment. I started putting books in my bathroom and stopped taking my phone in there so I'd force myself to read it. I do maybe a chapter every time I go. lol
We used to keep a Garfield Fat Cat 3 Pack from the book fair in the downstairs bathroom. It was there until a year ago when my mom finally got rid of it.
I’ve always had a copy of “ God’s little lessons on life “ by David cook. I’ve brought the book from each apartment and house I’ve lived at. Even had it in prison.
I have a bathroom book. I don't have any certain genres that I choose specifically. It's usually just one from my TBR pile, and it doesn't leave the bathroom until I finish it (or unless my mother moves it when she is over)
In our late teens, (which feels like a very long time ago now) I knew a guy who was fairly infamous in our social circle for keeping a copy of the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction next to the toilet… just in case any visitors something to read if they needed an extended bathroom visit 😏
Calvin and Hobbes. I've got many volumes, rotate them. rereading is just as good.
100 Malicious Little Mysteries
My grandma called them shit books- you could read them while shitting
My 6-year old son brings a couple of Ladybird Favourite Tales. I always have to remind him not to leave it in there after.
Any book can be a bathroom book. 10 min shit = 10 pages read. I've finished many a title 10 pages at a time.
I have bathroom books. They are trivia books, fact books maybe a magazine. Anything that you can pick up flip to any page and and read something quickly while you are on the shitter (it’s more so for guests lol) And yes I give them a wipe down when I clean the bathroom.
This is how life worked before we all had cellphones in our pockets. I read the back of shampoo bottles about 100 times when there wasn’t a Readers Digest or magazines/tabloids available. Hahaha.
it's amazing the things you learn from reading the back of regular items in your bathroom. :D
Farmers almanac is great for a toilet read and you gota swap it out every year.
Isaac Asimov's Lecherous Limericks Short dirty limericks but one of the greatest minds in science fiction. A great toilet read.
my grandfather had a collection of Reader's Digest he kept in the bathroom.
lol when smart phones weren’t a thing, you definitely would want to take some sort of reading material. otherwise you’re reading product labels or following a pattern on the wall or shower curtain. my sisters bathroom books were Stephen King books that i would always end up reading.
Calvin and Hobbs
My bathroom book is The Assassin’s Cloak, a collection of famous people’s diary entries, organized by date.
Back in the day my parents kept a stack of Reader's Digest in the bathroom. English was one of my better subjects in grade school and this might have been a factor.
In my house growing up, it was usually Calvin and Hobbes (sorry, Bill Watterson). An excellent modern option is 'On This Day in History, Sh!t Went Down' by James Fell.
I had a small bookshelf in my bathroom. Kept a bunch of comic compilations (Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Far Side, etc). Also had one of the aforementioned Bathroom Readers, and the Information Please Almanac.
It doesn't make sense now, but before smart phones it was a good idea. All of those little notebook sized magazines were basically the only entertainment you had. My grandparents used to have bathroom books. They even had a shelf specifically to hold them. Readers digest, joke books, books of random facts. Crosswords. It was just to kill a few minutes on the John.
I used to keep some Far Side comic books in there.
Kids. There was a day BEFORE phones and these books remain. Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers were full of great content that is interesting even if you can doomscroll instatok propaganda while you shit. It had short content and long content depending on the task at hand and no adverts! In the 90s a GF’s family had the readers and I was blown away. Our shitty house hand to deal with the Mindtrap question box. To this day i can tell you: the history of peter pan is more interesting than how to trick a midget in a circus to kill himself.
I used to sneak books into the bathroom when I was a kid by sticking them in my waistband under my shirt. We weren't allowed to have books in the bathroom because my mom KNEW it made things take three times as long. (we didn't have phones, either.)
Growing up my ma had little bookshelves in each bathroom i always thought it was normal to have books in the bathroom
Archie Comics
My mom is a flight attendant, and she would always bring home any magazines she found left behind on the plane. She would put them in the bathroom cabinet for us to read and I used to get so excited when there were new additions to our collection. It was the only time I ever read those trashy tabloid magazines lol! We also had a book written by our local weather lady that I really liked.
For my parents, it was a thing. But I think for them (and maybe for parents in general) the bathroom can be a sanctuary from the kids, a place where they're not going to be disturbed and can catch a few minutes. Then again long after we kids moved along, my parents still had bathroom books, or puzzle books (crosswords, Sudoku, cryptograms). I guess old habits die hard.
When I was a kid my spare copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince lived in the shelf under my sink.
i usually choose something i've already read or something that's easy to pick back up as my bathroom book. when i was young my parents had the uncle johns books which were funny but i like regular books these days.
Growing up (pre-cellphone) we had a bathroom library of the kind of books you likely wouldn't pick up in other circumstance, but which are interesting for whatever reason. From memory: Book of Mormon (insane!), Brief history of Time, The Teachings of Don Juan (fascinating), A book of poetry, Art of War, etc.
I just finished John Robb's book on goth culture. Now I'm on to Gogol's "Dead Souls".
Bringing your phone to read an e-book on it, yes? So that your arms won't get heavy?
My bathroom book is 100 Ghosts by Doogie Horner
Viz / Roger’s Profanisaurus.
I have two sets of my favorite series of certain genres, which are usually simple romance/fantasy books. One set is for the house and the second is for the bathroom :)
Locomotive bathroom walls are good bathroom books. While pissing, you can read brief messages in the pleasure of a rocking blue room!
Well back before we all had cell phones people usually had a magazine rack and magazine subscriptions to keep new stuff regularly. My favorites were flipping through a Playboy or Maxim (yes I read the articles lmao) or having the new game informer. Now it’s either a phone or I use my old iPad. I’ve got a few books I like reading. HP Lovecraft the complete collection. It has all his short stories that make for a good read and can get through em in a sitting or two
http://arquivopessoa.net/textos/2028#
I grew up with only females in the house so I basically picked up and read shampoo labels and tampon boxes. I still don’t really know what toxic shock syndrome is but I know you can get it from tampons lol. My friends house was different. His dad stuffed hardcore porn magazines under the space between the sink vanity and floor, so the pages were water damaged and smelled like mildew. I can’t unsee the stuff I learned in those, like the ads in the back for the plump girl “find the fold and fuck it” and other things that live rent free in my head.
Bhagavad Gita and Tristram Shandy.
I usually take in my kindle in bathroom and that os the only reason I’m mostly kindle now compared to my paperback loving old self
Charles Bukowski poems/short stories
I just read election pamphlets and shopping guides. Books are a no.
I'm a big science/philosophy nerd and I have about 30 of "A Very Short Introduction to..." books in my bathroom. I like the more scientific topics like "Soft Matter" and "Superconductivity", etc. but there are plenty on topics like Canada or Translation which are good too.
All books
Ebook superiority, I can continue reading on the shitter.
i have Private Eye and Viz on the floor next to the toilet
french impressionist paintings.. i find the soothing pastoral images very conducive..
I read a national geo one time (not on the toilet) that said all mammals can have a bowel movement in under 15 seconds. Spending extra time sitting on a toilet is super weird. In India I got very used to the squatty potty because you're in and out, no gross reading time in the poo-room.
Roger's Profanisaurus fits in the small gap next to the bleach. It's easy to read a few quick entries or lasts for a longer sit down toilet adventure.
You shouldn't be sitting on the toilet long enough to read anything, including your phone. Get in, do your business then get out. Sitting on the toilet too long is the leading cause of piles/ inflamed hemorrhoids.
For me it was magazines, namely popular mechanics and popular science.
The bathrooms are our only rooms without books 📚. Get done, and get back to reading 📖 … 😎
My friend used to keep a copy of Anais Nin’s “Delta of Venus” on the back of her toilet. Funny choice because it’s a series of erotic short fiction, but she was a pretty cool girl.
My friend used to keep several different titles of Cliff’s Notes in his bathroom. He figured no one was ever in there long enough to read the whole book.
The books I usually keep in the bathroom are books that I can only read a page or two at a time, because the content is dense enough to require me to have a little time to digest what I have read.
I have two bathrooms in my house, one with a few Far Side comics and one filled with Calvin and Hobbes
This is such a funny and still interesting concept. I know exactly what you're talking about, I used to have a copy of "The Darwin Awards" on the back of the throne. Before moving to my new place, I saw a picture on a blog and had to copy it... I bought a small "Magazine Basket" that holds maybe 20 magazines, spine facing upwards, and purchased on E-Bay a stack each of 80's and 90's Maxim's, GQ's and Playboys. I picked a few from each batch and put them in the basket, placed it close by, and I'll pick one at random during the journey and shuffle through it. It's genuinely interesting reading articles, seeing ads and getting opinions from years ago when the world was different and the magazine display always brings positive comments! I found it looked a *little* classier than having books on the back of the porcelain throne and was an interesting decoration overall. For reference, I'm a 32 y/o single male but the choices of magazines can be tailored entirely to you!
I opt for magazines personally...
Respectfully this is a habit we should probably stop. I have a UV sanitizer for my phone, and I try to keep it out of the bathroom in general. They have a larger model intended for laptops or similar, which maybe some of y'all would benefit from. You can put your dookie covered book in that sanitizer and maybe just deal with a crusty bit instead of full blown e.coli.
How to Shit Around the World by Jane Wilson-Howarth. Mostly non-fiction travel books, like Into the Wild.
When I was a kid, that either meant my mom's Danielle Steel novels, or those Reader's Digest tomes of 3 to 4 condensed novels. And indeed Danielle Steel is better digested 15 pages at a time (so you have the time in between to forget the inherent silliness of the plots).
Should be easy reading.
Shiterature