This thread reminds me of the line in the quintessential yuppie movie The Big Chill when the writer, played by Jeff Goldblum, says his articles can't be longer than what can be read in the time one spends in bathroom (though he puts it more bluntly.)

Catalogs galore!!! (L.L. Bean, The Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma (good for recipes!), The Vermont Country Store, Orvis, (espec. their dog catalog), Bas Bleue, Land's End, etc. etc.

I do like to read when I'm in the bathtub, either my current book or a magazine (in the spring, it might be garden catalogues). I don't keep books or magazines in my bathrooms, though. Years and years ago, my brother kept his Playboys in the bathroom (*cough* for the articles). I think his wife put a stop to that after they had kids, though.

Does anyone remember the Seinfeld episode where George has trouble exchanging (or returning?) a book that's been flagged as a bathroom book?

Georgia -

Yes, I well remember the "red flagged book" from the Seinfeld episode. At our B&N, they have little tables right outside the loos so you can put your merchandise down before you enter. I never see anything on the tables though so can't tell if people are just ignoring the table and taking their stuff in or leaving it outside in the care of a friend or family member.

Man - I miss Seinfeld. So glad it's on re-runs nearly all the time or I would go into withdrawals.

I never had a book in the powder room as a single. Now as a married woman I find a book by the loo all the time. It is usually military-related.

Once or twice after becoming tipsy I have left my guard down enough to indulge in a paragraph or two.

At our local library we have a problem with a few patrons who take popular newspapers into the mensroom.

~Vanessa

I'm not much for reading in the bathroom, though I do love to read when soaking in the bathtub. Just disposable books, mind you, paperbacks and magazines, so no harm done if they get a bit damp. Usually. Since I've been married though I learned about bathroom reading, Now we have a small built-in bookcase in the bathroom. I kid you not. And it is well stocked with my DH's favorite magazines, mostly electronics, bicycle, woodworking, audio, and crossword. I throw a few garden and fashion magazines into the mix for guests to enjoy. Seems to me to be an odd place to read, but I have been known to read in some strange situations myself.

My personal definition of a minor he!! is a waiting room with no reading material.

Rosefolly

Funny you should bring this up, lemonhead. In another post about how many books we read at one time, I debated whether to call one of my books a "bathroom" book. :)

I'm not sure about a socio-economic class breakdown; the books in my bathroom vary weekly or bi-weekly. At the moment I'm reading "The Sunflower" by Simon Wiesenthal ... and not reading, although it's still lying there on the counter, "Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud."

I'm lucky to not have to share a bathroom since the kids moved out. My husband, who has two masters degrees and a PhD, and who I don't think would be considered working class, keeps USA Today crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles in his bathroom. Hmmm ... so what does that say about us I wonder?

I've always had reading material in the bathroom, mainly magazines and catalogs, but occasionally a book or two. I keep a basket in each bathroom to hold magazines, and books travel in and out with the user so they don't risk water or steam damage.

My sister, who has a long counter in her bathroom, usually has a stack of romance novels at one end. All the romance novels I read (one or two a year) result from picking one up as needful.

PAM -

Since you mentioned Paul Fossell's book on Class, I have now ordered it from amazon as I would be very interested in the American take on class.

Personally, I find it harder to tell someone's class over here in the US than I did in England unless they are very obvious about it. In England, I can usually spot it at 50 paces and definitely within about 5 seconds if they open their mouths (accent-wise). Over here, not so much.

Lemon, I do hope you like Class. I found it so much fun that I bought a 1st edition hardcover to keep. My old paperback was falling apart. I think it's great fun, especially the "living room quiz" at the back. Example:

Begin with a score of 100. For each of the following in your living room, add or subtract points as indicated. Then ansertain social class according to the table at the end.

Hardwood floor - add 4
parquet floor - add 8
vinyl floor - subtract 6
working fireplace - add 4
worn oriental carpet - add 2 (each)
new oriental carpet - aubtract 5 (each)
threadbare rug or carpet - add 8 (each)
reproductions of anything Picasso - subtract 2 (each)
motorcycle kept in living room - subtract 10

It goes on and on and I personally, had a lot of fun with it. And bookcases, by the way, get lots of points... the more books shoved on them, the more points you get. Obviously, I have the book in front of me and will be re-reading it. Starting now.

Oh, one more thing to mention about bathroom reading. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, the only books that go into the bathroom are MY OWN books. Never a library book, nor a book lent by a friend. In my dream house, there will be a built-in bookshelf and magazine rack in the bathroom.

PAM

leonhead/liz, I had wondered if your use of the word 'bathroom' was the US euphemism for what we in the UK call the lavatory/WC, or the room in which one takes a bath. And on the social class thing that is the number one class indicator for anyone from my side of the pond although, as you say listening to someone speak must come a close second .. . and how you hold your knife at meal times possibly a third. :-)

No books in our bathroom, but usually various gardening/seed catalogues and the supplements from the w/end newspapers.
Do you in the US realise how lucky you are with ALL the bathrooms you appear to have in your homes? In the UK until quite recently one bathroom was considered quite adequate, although the loo was usually separate.
Today building regulations have changed and a new house with more than two bedrooms has to have more than one WC.

Btw the Kate Fox book has had mixed reviews over here. Some people find her a laugh a minute and others would just like to grind her face into the floor and complain that her 'research' is done for her own research company and is therefore rather meaningless.
Have you read her piece on the English pub and how to behave therein?

Here is a link that might be useful: Passport to the Pub

In my part of the world:

1/2 bath-w.c. (toilet) and sink

3/4 bath-w.c., sink, shower

full bath-w.c., sink, tub

over-full-all of full plus dressing table, tv, fireplace...

most bathrooms here are have the plumbing in one place-the "w.c." isn't usually separate. We just had to replace all parts of our 3/4 bath connected to the master bedroom-painfully expensive even though the room is only about 7'x6'. Nothing fancy. So when we say we are reading in the bathroom, we aren't necessarily in the tub...if you get my drift.

you know how I put WC up there as another name for toilet? Make that loo.
Long day with the 7 year olds. My brain is fired.

know how I said my brain is fired? Make that fried.
I'm taking my book and going to bed.

cc: Please explain the terms 1/2 and 3/4 bath and full bath. Is this indicating a measurement? In a previous home, I had what was called a Roman bath under the shower fixture. This was a small tiled enclosure about 1ft/30cm high and was useful for keeping water from the shower in check or when filled, for bathing small children and dogs. My current bath is a stand-alone as I am in a rented place in a retirement village and could not have a plumbed-in fixture. I originally ordered the 4ft long cheapest model but the wrong colour was delivered and as there was a long wait for the correct one to be shipped from interstate, the suppliers asked if I would be able to fit the next size into the space for the same price, which was no problem so I did very well from the mistake.

Vee, thanks for that link. I didn't realise that I'd read the aforementioned Kate Fox book, but I now realise that I have. It was on the bookshelf in a holiday cottage that we rented a couple of years ago - and yes, I think I read most of it in the bathroom !

I remember getting rather irritated by it at the time - it seemed to churn up all the old cliches and package them in a "de facto" way.
However, on re-reading the "Pub" excerpt through your link, I found it quite amusing - and quite accurate. As a long-term (ahem..) "student" of hostelry interiors there are a number of omissions and corrections that I could make.....

A 1/2 bath only has a sink and loo. Also called a powder room, usually in the public part of the house for guests. Mine is down the hall from the kitchen on the first floor.
a 3/4 bath has a sink, loo and shower stall, but not a tub or a tub/shower combo.
A full bath has the tub, with or without a shower in it, and the sink and loo.

Often the room size goes along with what plumbing is in there-but I have seen some very tiny full baths, and one remarkable 3/4 bath, because the shower could hold 4 people and had 12 different shower heads. The owner had it built to his specs-and he doesn't like tubs. I could have moved in there-he also has a tv, fridge and window seat. they aren't IN the shower, but they are in the room.

cece, what you call the 'sink' in the US is know as a wash basin in the UK. The sink is the thing in the kitchen Hence 'kitchen-sink' dramas/books. The folk written about probably didn't have bathrooms and just an 'outside' loo.
The term 'powder room' is only sometimes used to describe the ladies WC in a hotel, restaurant etc.
Now I wonder why the owner of the 4-person shower needs a TV within the room? It sounds as though all the entertainment is 'on-tap' so to speak.

I read somewhere about someone who kept JoyceÂs Ulysses in their bathroom and managed to read it in about a year.

I keep old copies of Mad Magazine, my monthly consumer newsletter, a book of folk-tales and a book of short humorous stories in the bathroom. Sometimes I also keep a volume of short stories in there.

My most apt bathroom read ever was a book titled Outhouses. I now know how to construct an outhouse, what wildlife to expect if I have to use one in the US, and many other fascinating facts about the subject.

I have been corrected several times by plumbers....the thing I call a sink is not a sink when it is in the bathroom-it is a basin. But if it holds water, and has faucets....and if I am cleaning it, I can call it whatever I want! :-)

When I lived in West Virginia in the 1960's, there actually were "Outhouses" in use. Now, I suspect they are probably against code in all US states.

When I lived in an old building France, the "toilette" was next to the kitchen and merely a "loo." (Odd location, IMO). But the bathtub had a room unto itself at the far end of the hall. This seemed to be pretty standard.

Vee -

Thanks for your comments. You mentioned that I used the word "bathroom" for the lavatory - yes, I was being American. :-)

I had a hard time over here when I first came over as I would never know what to call the lavatory/loo when I needed to ask someone where one was in a public space. If I said "lavatory", the typical response was a blank look; same was with "loo". So there was much embarassment on both sides when this conversation ensued.

Then I realized that Americans (at least Texans) tend to use "bathroom" as the catch-all phrase to mean "lavatory" and once I realised this, it was much easier, and a lot less embarassing. I still, to this day, wonder what I will be getting especially if I am at a private house: will it be a full-bathroom, a half-...... And I am too embarassed to say "toilet". (See tabloid chatter about Kate Middleton's use of "toilet" a few years ago.)

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

To add further confusion, some Americans say "lavatory" for the wash basin/sink, not for the room in which this item is plumbed. One of my first confusing experiences in England (nearly forty years ago) was asking, "Where is the restroom, please?" My innocent (to me) request set off a nearby woman because I heard her muttering to her companion, "Damned Americans! If they want the lavatory, why don't they just say it."

That Fussell book, Class: I think it was there that I read about the upperclass being oblivious to their image, such as arriving at some chi-chi restaurant in a dirty rattletrap car and tossing the keys blithely to some disdainful valet for him to park. Some have the same attitude about their houses and the amenities -- the plumbing and fixtures were installed in 1922 and they see no need for updates unless the drains don't work at all. Their identity is tied to their background, breeding, schooling, and the fact that their houses have been in the family for generations.

As for equating the class of the householder/owner with the reading material found in whatever-the-room-is-called where the toilet sits...well, it seems a very odd determining factor and too subjectively judgmental. But I suppose people do make judgments of that sort, even about collections of books in other parts of a house. I've known people who want impressive "decorative" books in their public rooms and will reserve the stuff they really read (if anything at all) in private rooms.

Woodnymph, I was 14 before my grandparents got indoor plumbing. That would be around 1966. It was the outhouse, generally full of wasps, or so it seemed to me, and at night nothing so elegant as a chamber pot, but instead a big old cookpot. Water came from a cistern, pumped by hand. Unfiltered.

cc: Thanks for the explanation, I read a lot of US based detective stories and have come across the 'half bath' but (mea culpa) never bothered to check to see what it was as I am usually too engrossed in the story. I am afraid I do that a lot excepting for food references. I usually check to see what my heroine is eating. I mostly read about female PIs who live in tiny apartments and eat peculiar meals unless a caring person cooks for them.
Regarding outside facilities, an old relative would not live in a house without one, he said inside ones were insanitory!
Sometimes in Australia, the loo is known as a 'dunny' which caused some confusion when a visitor to the US asked if she could go to the dunny and her hostess said she would find out where that was and take her there during the holiday.

Tried to find some info. about Class by Fussell on various UK sites but little on offer so turned to US ones. The minefield-of-class UK v US became apparent straight away.
Someone gives the definition of US class differences thus. He visits a fancy restaurant with a well-heeled girl friend. She orders pizza and eats it with a knife and fork rather than using her fingers.
This would never have happened in the UK because NO high class (even medium class) eating place would ever serve pizza. It is considered to be at the same level as fish and chips, burgers and all the other 'take-away' rubbish/junk food, the remains of which now line our town centre pavements. And don't get me started on litter/trash. I could moan for England on the subject and frequently pick up discarded plastic bottles/wrappers etc.

Here in SA we have very little problem with discarded bottles, because since the 1970s there has been a deposit on them (and recently extended to flavoured milk cartons, flavoured milk being, I think, a peculiarly Australian favourite) and children and homeless people collect them and cash them in. There has been a push recently to have this made Australia-wide, but for some strange reason, the other states don't want it.

We generally term a bathroom that is entered from a bedroom an en suite, and this will have the toilet in the same room as the shower/bath and basin. The main bathroom for the house will usually have the toilet in a separate room. Ours has the toilet separate from the basin, which is also separate from the bath and shower, so theoretically three people can use it at once.

In the 1960's, while traveling in Scandinavia, we stayed often in student dormitories while on tour. I recall using what seemed to be a most bizarre bath arrangement: The entire bathroom , including toilet, functioned as a shower, with a drain in the center of the floor. There was no "shower stall", no shower curtain, etc. So when one turned on the shower to wash, the entire room got soaked!

I forgot to mention that the house I lived in in France had a sink (basin) in each bedroom. Only cold water, however. Staying in some upscale French hotels was enlightening to this naive Southern girl, as often there was a bidet as well as a toilet in the bathroom. (Americans jokingly called it a "foot bath."

About pizza, I was amazed to discover that the pizza served in northern Italy bears no ressemblance in taste or looks to what we label "pizza" in the US. It was far, far more delicious. And it was served in upscale restaurants.

Woodnymph-at least the room was constantly being hosed down! When DD came home and showered after muddy soccer (football) games, I wanted to drag the garden hose in and just let rip in her tub.
Don't kid yourself-some Americans thought it was a foot bath. My parents were on a wine and cheese boat tour down a French river, and one night they stayed ashore in a lovely hotel-the next morning, one of the women commented on what a great idea that was, how convenient it had made doing her pedicure. My father started to set her straight and my mother stopped him.

Woodnymph, my DH wanted that Scandinavian-style the-whole-room-is-a-shower bath, so that's what we had built for the pool house. He and the guys call it the "Man's Bath Room," apparently after a television sitcom called Home Improvement that featured such an arrangement. This show also had the "Man's Kitchen" where the whole room was a gigantic dishwasher.

In some Middle Eastern, African, and Asian homes (maybe other places too, I don't know), the accommodation is a hole in the floor with thoughtful slots on either side to indicate where to place the user's feet when squatting. Afterwards a hose with sprayer is used to wash everything, floor included -- it's a bit tricky because the user needs to stand at the threshhold and aim the sprayer at a distance in order not to trail out wet shoeprints. No reading in that toilet facility!

My mother just vouched about the "lavatory" meaning the wash basin/sink to some Americans. Mother told this on her mother: A young man, invited to eat lunch in Oma's (grandmother's) kitchen, asked her if it was all right for him to use the lavatory. Oma told him that he was welcome to use the kitchen sink! Of course that's not what he wanted to do and he had to stammer out his real intention. Mother says everyone at the kitchen table guffawed, and it was a toss up who blushed the deepest, the young man or Oma.

Frieda, your remark on "class" books on view made me think of a friend with whom I go each fall to see the "decorator show house" sponsored by a local college to generate funds. Each room is done by a different local decorator, with plenty of business cards left lying around. Any time she spies fake leather-bound books (usually in some high-up, out-of-the-way place), my friends sniffs, "Decorator books."

After I've spent the day gardening, I often wish for an outdoor shower like the one we had at the beach house. An enclosure with an open bottom and top, showerhead and a foot level faucet. They are standard in beach communities here in the mid-Atlantic. Is it the same elsewhere?

Hmm...I don't know how classy or not I am but it's been fun reading this thread. The only thing I ever take into the bathroom with me is an occassional catalog or magazine, however when my children were young and at home I admit to "escaping" to the bathroom to read now and then....to each his own

I've been watching and waiting for someone else to bring this up, but... My DH and son (when he lived at home) kept hand held electronic games in the bathroom. they considered themselves to be "modern men". I'm not sure where that puts us on the "class" scale. But I'm thinking it's not up there with the Queen.

To my horror, the rented retirement village apartment that I had contracted for over the internet had an open plan shower similar to the Scandinavian one woodnymph described. The water went everywhere in spite of a slight slope into the drainhole near the shower fixture. This was one reason why I bought a bath which was placed under the shower and collected the water, which was drained off from a pipe into the hole. A very makeshift arrangement but it works. I don't like shower cubicles anyway due to my claustrophobia and the difficulty in cleaning the glass screens in a limescaled water district.A shower curtain can be taken down for laundering.
Like other RPers, I was shocked at some of the primitive facilities when I started travelling. I never realised before, that which I thought was normal to everyone was not! After advice from fellow travellers, I took matches and lit one to combat smells but never put a lit match into the hole. This could cause an explosion from gas apparently. I never tested that theory but the match and carrying my own supply of paper were good suggestions.

I have been fascinated by toilets all over the world. Thankfully I have never been required to use a squat toilet (other than out in nature when camping), but just the variety of toilet pans is interesting. For instance, US toilets fill up and drain when you flush, so the first time I used one, I was horrified that it was blocked and would overflow. Aussie and UK ones have the water cascade in to flush it. When I was a child, old toilets had the cistern high on the wall and you 'pulled the chain', now the cistern is right with the pan and you 'push the button.' All toilets in SA must now be dual flush to save water, and the newest ones use so little water I am surprised that they work. When I was last in the UK many toilets had a lever handle on the cistern. Some German toilets have a (to me) very strange shaped pan where there is a flat 'shelf' immediately under you and very little water. Matches are recommended in these.

While traveling in West Africa (Ghana, I think) as a college student, I asked for a toilet/bathroom/whatever, and was directed to an elevated hole in the ground surrounded by a two-foot-high fence. The hole was swarming with flies and I just couldn't bring myself to use it. I almost burst before we got back to the ship we were traveling on.

Seeing the variety of facilities around the world was quite interesting.

In the book Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the heroine agrees to go back in time with her new love...if she can bring along her indoor plumbing. (movie has a very different ending.)
Certainly the only way I would go.

GardenWeb's decorating forum had a long thread on this topic. I read catalogues and Interview magazine.
Fussell's about 40 years out of date, and if you like him, read his wife, Betty's book. Scary.

At a rest stop on a tour in Italy a couple of years ago, the restroom had a couple of stalls with the hole in the floor and footprints, while the others were modern. One teenaged girl got back on the coach to report that she had gone in one of the first kind and exclaimed, "I didn't know what to do!" Farm girl that I am, I wondered how she wasn't able to figure it out, even in the event that as a small girl she hadn't in an emergency been taken somewhere in the grass by her mother. I'm afraid I've become a bit of a cynic in my declining years.

What astrokath wrote reminded me of my bathroom in Boston. I lived in a very old brick structure on a small alley on Beacon Hill. The apartment was like a "shotgun" house, in that it was long and narrow and one room led into the next, like cars on a train. At the very end was the bathroom. I was awestruck by the ancient toilet, which, in order to flush, one had to pull a chain. A lot of jokes were made about these, but oddly enough, when I relocated, I missed reaching up and pulling....

I confess to being nonplussed by self-flushing toilets. I live in fear of becoming so accustomed to them that I'll forget to flush at home, or worse, in someone else's home.

true story:
Three years ago we replaced the elementary school in our town. They moved across the field from the old to the new school mid-year, with great hoopla and fanfare.
The boys' and girls' rooms have auto-flush toilets. The first time the kindergarteners went, one poor little one came screaming out, afraid she was going to be sucked in.

Our old Victorian house that I grew up in England had a combination of both the handle flush ones and the pull from the top toilets. I used to like the "pull" ones as it was so old fashioned - I couldn't imagine it was much different from the one that the original owners of the house had had.

I wonder if France still has those public conveniences where you go inside a concrete room and then stand on two bricks and go into a little hole in the ground. Accuracy counts for sure then.

Auto-flush toilets? Whatever next? (I'm afraid my mind has considered the logical next step - and it's not pleasant....)

I've always had a bookshelf in my loo. It normally contains a few cartoon books and a few "dipping into" type books.

The worst were the toilets with automatically renewing seat covers. They lasted for a couple of years in my formerly favorite movie house. Anyone else experience those?

yes! In a famous restaurant in New Orleans. Tres bizarre.

Ah, that is one type of toilet I haven't encountered, Chris, although I have been in the auto flush ones, and also one that was flushed with a pedal on the floor.

I don't like the toilets in planes and trains that have a strong flush and no covering lid. I do realise that I could not possibly be sucked into the small hole and violently ejected but I stand as far back as possible and hang onto the washbasin. Totally irrational!