Jack Mingo is a wonderful pop culture historian. I really emjoyed his book on the origins of different products, How the Cadillac Got its Fins). He has co-written a new book out that sounds good, called W. C. Privy's Original Bathroom Companion. From the release:
It's a thick 480-page collection of diverse, short and amusing articles, quizzes, fact, fiction, and trivia, lavishly illustrated with drawings and photos.
CONTENTS
Here's a partial list of the table of contents:
History of the Hawaiian Shirt
Weird Tourist Sites
How to Build an Igloo
Prizes: Who were Pulitzer, Heisman, Nobel, Ryder, and Stanley?
Strange Tales from the Bible
How to Escape From Alligators and Quicksand
Ben Franklin's Naughty Writings: "About Flatulence" and "On Choosing a Mistress"
Penguin Love
True Facts About Pigs, Penguins, Kangaroos, and Lemmings
How to Charm a Snake
Eyewitness Accounts of the Boston Tea Party and the Lincoln Assassination
Bathroom History
Stories Behind Mona Lisa, American Gothic, Whistler's Mother & Washington's Unfinished Portrait
Latin and Yiddish Quizzes
The History of Toasters
Optical Illusions
How to Milk a Cow
What Happens After You Flush
Strange Vintage Ads
Obscure Aesop's Fables
A History of Bathroom Graffiti
I wish it were available as an e-text, because I do most of my bathroom reading these days with a Palm. Link Discuss
