Uncle John's Bathroom Readers

[Nooblar]

These books are awesome! For those of you still confused, this line is called Uncle John's Bathroom Reader and they market them as "bathroom books" mostly tongue-in-cheek. My family has made it sort of a tradition to give me the new one each year at Christmas ever since junior high. But I only realized how much I love them when I didn't get one last year I hope to get the new one this time.

Oh, and cool BR story: I had a speech class last year where one of the assignments was to tell a story. I selected "America's First Private Eye" from the Ultimate Bathroom Reader. Everyone else took the "story reading" assignment to mean a book for toddlers. My teacher loved the fact that I chose something informative and interesting, and I got an A+

PS--I suggest changing the thread title to the full name of the series (for clarity)

[ABOMINATION]

Title changed.

[ABOMINATION]

Originally Posted by Nooblar

Oh, and cool BR story: I had a speech class last year where one of the assignments was to tell a story. I selected "America's First Private Eye" from the Ultimate Bathroom Reader. Everyone else took the "story reading" assignment to mean a book for toddlers. My teacher loved the fact that I chose something informative and interesting, and I got an A+

Yeah, I read that article too. One of my favorite is, '(Bat) Bombs Away.' When I read that article, I was so surprised I'd never heard of that before. If anyone wants, I can post the article, its very informative, and I doubt many people have heard the story.

[Nooblar]

For me it's a fun challenge to hunt down the older volumes! I got 5, 6, and 7 in the omnibus Legendary Lost volume, but I only ever saw 2 and 3 once, years ago, at a Borders.

I got the Minnesota Bathroom Reader two years ago. It's hilarious! There's even a section on how to have a conversation in Minnesota! I don't know how many states have their own volume now...

[Mutt Lo]

Originally Posted by Nooblar

For me it's a fun challenge to hunt down the older volumes! I got 5, 6, and 7 in the omnibus Legendary Lost volume, but I only ever saw 2 and 3 once, years ago, at a Borders.

I got the Minnesota Bathroom Reader two years ago. It's hilarious! There's even a section on how to have a conversation in Minnesota! I don't know how many states have their own volume now...

Minnesotta, Michigan & Ohio

bathroomreader.com is having a sale for christmas.

Im gonna buy the newest bathroom reader and uncle john plunges into history.

[ABOMINATION]

Ok, I've got a segment of the bat story, and I'll be posting occasionally till the end of the story.


(BAT) BOMBS AWAY!
Here’s a batty bit of World War II history you may not have heard before.


BAT MAN
In the days and weeks following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a lot of people wrote letters to President Roosevelt. Some wrote to express their sympathy with the victims or their outrage at the attack; others made suggestions about how to fight back against Japan. One man, a dentist from Irwin, Pennsylvania, wanted to talk about bats. His name was Lytle S. Adams, and he had recently been to the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, home to one of the largest bat colonies in North America. When Adams learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor, his thoughts returned to the bats he’d seen-could they be useful to the war effort? He was convinced they could.

COM-BAT
In his letter to the president, Adams explained that bats are capable of carrying more than their weight in flight. In many species, for example, the mother bat carries two or even three of her young as she searches for food. If bats could carry their children, Adams reasoned, why couldn’t they carry tiny bombs? The dentist’s plan went further: Bats hate sunlight, so if bats carrying time-delayed incendiary devices could be released over a Japanese city shortly before dawn, as the sun rose, the bats would seek refuge from the light. Many would roost in the eaves and attics of buildings-a great number of which were made of flammable materials like wood, bamboo, and paper soaked in fish oil. When the firebombs detonated, thousands of tiny fires would start in building all over the city. Not only that, bats typically hide out of sight in hard-to-reach places, and that would make the fires difficult to detect. By the time they were discovered, the fires would be well established but still small enough at first (each bat would weigh less than half an ounce, so the bombs would have to be small, too) that people would have a fighting chance to escape. Casualties would be lower than with conventional firebombs, which weighed hundreds of pounds and engulfed entire building on impact, giving occupants no warning and no chance of escape. For all their destructive powers, Adams believed that “bat bombs” could be a more humane weapon of war than regular bombs. How many fires could be started with bats? “Approximately 200,000 bats could be transported in one airplane,” Adams wrote, “and still allow one-half the payload capacity to permit free air circulation and increased gasoline load. Ten such planes would carry two million fire starters."