The Serenity of the Bathroom Stall

My favorite spot to read?  It's probably not where you'd expect.

Let's just say it's quiet, isolated, and near water.

Here's a recent photo of my favorite reading retreat, taken just after sunrise:

The vintage sign is my wife's idea of a joke

Nothing can compare to the serenity of the bathroom for getting a good chunk of reading done--and not just the home version pictured above--but, even more frequently, the middle stall of the employee bathroom at the Day Job.  You can read more about my favorite reading spot in this feature at Book Riot, along with my fellow Rioters' book nooks.

I've always favored the Porcelain Palace as a place to take 20-page bites from whatever book I'm reading at the time.  I don't have any statistics, but I'm willing to bet I'm joined by millions of fellow "john readers."  Not everyone thinks it's such a cool idea, though.  I once worked with a female officer in the Pentagon who, every time I returned from a "book break," would crinkle her nose and go, "Did you just take that book into the bathroom?  Ewwww!" (And, yes, I was pleasure-reading on taxpayers' dimes; but then hundreds of thousands of federal employees take thrice-daily "smoke breaks" on the clock, too; so I'm [weakly] justified.)

I never understood my boss' distaste for bathroom reading.  I mean, it's not like I was dipping Anna Karenina in the bowl or, in the absence of toilet paper, desperately tearing pages from a Michael Chabon novel.  I really do enjoy the isolation and the distraction-free block of minutes when I'm locked in a restroom stall.  Sometimes, I'll even go in there when I don't have any "business" to take care of.  I just lock the door, lower the toilet seat, sit on it fully-clothed, and go to that dog-eared spot in my current novel.

Oh man, I can just hear the howls of protest coming from book purists: "You dog-ear book pages?  Ewwww!"  Mea culpa.  At least I'm not sticking a sandwich between the pages to mark my spot (which I've heard of at least one guy, desperate for a bookmark, once did while reading A Million Little Pieces by James Frey....thus, adding even more baloney to that book).

As I said, bathrooms are not the only reading havens for me.  I also have a few other treasured book nooks in my home.  These chairs, for instance:

The upstairs office

The downstairs living room

And what about you?  What are your favorite reading spots?  Tell us in the comments section below.