We Must Go Back to Our Old Way of Passing Time While Pooping

Quick: Where are you while you’re reading this? But that changed in the late 1980s, when brothers John and Gordon Javna created Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, the first purpose-built bathroom book. St. Martin’s sent bookstores a toilet-shaped “dump display” for the sales counter during the 1988 holiday season, and Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader was a huge success. “People bought it as a joke gift for people who spent too much time in the bathroom,” said Gordon, “and then it became an expected gift every year.” The series inspired innumerable copycats and, by the time the Javna brothers stepped away from the line in 2016, they estimated they’d sold more than 14 million books. I think people now might view that as a cleanliness issue, having books that everyone touches in there.” But I say it’s time to bring back the bathroom book!