After the recent Reading In Bed post, I wondered about another horizontal way of reading—in the bath.

It’s a risky activity with books, let alone electronic ways of reading. People’s addiction to their smartphones has led to all too many dying by electrocution, foolishly recharging their phone while in the bath:

http:// https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39307418

In an ideal world, one would have a loving narrator reading your favourite book to you:

If you’re going it alone, then why not be comfortable? Stay long enough, and you’ll turn into a human prune!

Toddlers have long been well supplied with waterproof books!

And now, adults can get classic literature in a waterproof form:

http:// http://bibliobath.com/

Reading in the shower is tricky, but you could show your literary interests with the right shower curtain:

https://fineartamerica.com/shop/shower+curtains/girl+reading+book

Should you be worried about dropping your book into the bath, or making the pages go crinkly from the humidity, it’s possible to buy a waterproof cover! At $85 it’s pricey…Ziploc food bags are cheap if you really can’t resist…

http:// https://www.bookofjoe.com/2014/10/book-read.html

I admit, that I’ve read in the bath many a time, several times nodding off and dipping the book into the water, waking with a start to insert toilet tissue between the pages. Funnily enough, the last time it happened, the book I was reading, The Dreadful Judgement by Neil Hanson, is about the Great Fire of London. It’s a wonder, it didn’t hiss when it touched my bubble bath foam! The book now looks like it’s been gnawed on by a hippopotamus.

Do you read in the bath?

Dropped any books?

Chen Bolan (Born Shanghai, 1955)