I now have someone new to check out. And the Hippocratic Corpus. For a gift I’m going to ask for the Loeb Hippocrates – keep my Greek language fresh on the facing page and read curiosity-interest ancient medical knowledge and case studies, among primitive theories of climates affecting the characters of nations (which I happen to buy into, but my mood is heavily influenced by the weather) and treatises on urology, hemorrhoids, and STDs.

The ideal bathroom book for someone wanting to project eccentricity and erudition while having genuinely fascinating reading material to take a shit to. The Bathroom Reader series had to have taken a huge hit with the closure of brick-and-mortar bookstores. Borders had a whole table of them on display by checkout as an impulse purchase, like a Red Bull or a Snickers in a grocery store. Cheap general-interest miscellanies are a tempting waiting-in-line product. Now you have to intentionally go out of your way and want it enough to do an internet search for it. Totally more friction, to use a buzzword.