DD 076-080.999 (Tony)The Great American Bathroom Book, Volume 1 (080 GRE V.1)

Brought to you by Compact Classics.

By far, without a doubt, the worst book I have ever read. I started this book on May 8th, 2006. 606 pages and so many renewals that I had to have my wife check it out so I could keep up the suffering later; finally, I finished it last night.

Not everthing about this book was bad. As I read volume I of "single sitting summaries of all-time great books," I did get to enjoy knowing what Little Women and Othello were about. And it had some great tips on business and dieting, as well as a trivia section.

However, the prose was choppy, the editing was poor, and it seemed to go on forever and ever and ever....etc. It got so bad, I had to break this book up into 6 page percentages, just so I could feel like I was accomplishing something. I took great joy when I would finish a section (called a library in this book) and get to go through a couple of pages of tables of content and get closer to finishing this book.

Here's a break down of what the Libraries were in this book:

Library #1: Business and Leadership
Library#2: Personal Effectiveness
Library #3: Quotes and Anecdotes
Library #4: Biographies
Library #5: Literary Classics
Library #6: Modern Literature
Library #7: Health and Fitness
Library#8: Word Power
Library #9: Expanding Knowledge

For a bathroom book, 2 page summaries are fine. But in this book, some summaries were 4-8 pages long. Too long if you ask me. Summaries of some books are just too short to do the work justice (i.e. The Joy-Luck Club)Many quotes in Library 3 are reused more than once, more than twice in a couple of cases. And an unneeded amount of print is devoted to Shakespeare works.

So why didn't I just give up on this book and read something else? Well, it's not for lack of trying. The Chapel Hill Library does not yet have books in the section (076-080) I was reading. And the only alternative Hillsborough had was The Great American Bathroom Book: Volume 2

Though I am in no way a fan of this book, I must give its authors a small thank you. If it wasn't for the fact that I had used up all of my renewals, we probably wouldn't have gotten some of the publicity we've been getting lately. See, as I read this book, the binding fell apart, and I was afraid of losing the chance to finish this book ( I was over 51% done at the time) and have to start over with volume 2. So my wife and I explained our Dewey project to the librarians and bargained with the Hillsborough branch to get them to allow my wife to renew the book without it being rebound first. Now, we've been book-marked by the library, and our hits have increased.

Not a bad trade-off for literary torture.- Just don't make me read Volume 2, Please!!!!!

Note from Jan---lucky me---that leaves volume 2 for me-I'm still back on 031, so Chapel Hill Public Library and Hillsborough Library, if you have plans to order ANYTHING else between 076 and 080.999, now is the time!!!