Sue Lange Takes it to the Toilet

Oh yes! We are absolutely running a series on bathroom reading! So long as it's taking place behind the closed  (or open, if that's the way you swing) bathroom door, we want to know what it is. It can be a book, the back of the shampoo bottle, the newspaper, or Twitter on your cell phone - whatever helps you pass the time...


Today, author Sue Lange takes it to the toilet. Sue has two published works of speculative fiction satire. Her first novel, Tritcheon Hash, was republished as an ebook by Book View Cafe in 2011, and was included in Kirkus’ best of list for that year. Her second novel, We, Robots, was included in io9′s 13 Stories that will change the way you look at Robots list. Her latest novel, The Perpetual Motion Club, is a trek into the Young Adult/Sci Fi genre. Her short fiction has bee published in Futures (Nature), Adbusters, Apex Digest of Science Fiction and Horror, and elsewhere.

Sue Lange's Bathroom Reading Experience

I just moved to an apartment. The bathroom is too small for reading. Serious reading takes a lot of space and accouterments. You can’t just crowd onto a rug in the corner or under the sink. Not if you’re reading big stuff like I read.

 The bathroom in my old house had a lot of space. There I had a throne, a bidet, a basin, a claw-foot tub, and a stand-alone shower. That was a proper reading room. This what I got here is just a travesty.

 Back when I was a queen and had a real bathroom, I read on the throne as well as while taking a good soak in the tub. My choice of reading material depended on which of the two stations I was working in.

 The toilet was reserved for hardcore material. I’m talking non-fiction, not pornography. Hardcore non-fiction includes things like software manuals, farming how-tos, political manifestos from the days when communism was still a viable philosophy. It was stuff that made you think. And you had to think to get through it. Only while dropping a dense load can you tackle such a dense load.

 I had to sell my house before I got to the instruction manual for the VCR, but that turned out alright because I had to sell the VCR too.

My escape to the tub included sensuous material, as befits a sensual activity. Proust and Colette were favorites. For more modern material, I’d turn to Swamplandia. Perfect for a water environment. The crocodile wrestling really came alive for me in the tub. If you’re going to try this yourself, I’d suggest adding some lily pads for authenticity. A frog or salamander wouldn’t hurt.