95. Books

I began to scatter books and magnifying glasses around the house. I have wanted to open more lines of narratives to read. For instance, the first obvious book-post is the toilet. I set out de Sade’s “Philosophy of the Bedroom” on the toilet-tank along with a magnifying glass. When I am stuck on the toilet, I can read a page or two from that. I would also have a book for the kitchen, so that when I am busy preparing my meals and doing my evening chores, making ice and cleaning up, I can read a page or two from that book. I would have a book for each of the two beds I use, so when I am stirring awake in the early morning, I can read a page or two in those books. I have been flirting with this idea for some time, developing a manic hunger to have a lot of narratives going, aside from the three books that make up my daily reading and the book that I have for my bedtime reading.

However, this feverish urge quickly settled down, and now I only have one extra book going, and that is the one on the toilet. Though, it is not de Sade. I grew disenchanted with that book, and I now have Francis Wheen’s biography on Karl Marx in the bathroom. I had been itching to reread it, and it is a good biography that is still easy and breezy enough to read on the sly. And one finds that you can make fairly steady progress on a book while you are stuck on the toilet.