Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization
If you have some disposable income, Flushed, Hodding Carter’s tribute to the “humble plumber,” is a fun, yet informative, way to spend it. And you won’t feel that your money has gone to waste – except, of course, that it has, in a sense.
Flushed begins and ends with Carter’s tribute to the Toto Washlet S300, an electronic toilet seat that serves as a bidet. In between, we learn about the marvels of Roman plumbing, take a tour of the London sewer, skip across the pond to a waste treatment facility at Boston Harbor, read Rabelais on wiping methods (the finicky may want to choose another book for mealtime reading), study the evolution of the modern toilet, meet some plumbers, and go to a plumbing trade show. You have to like a book where Robert the Bruce, Thomas Jefferson, William Butler Yeats, and Tobias Smollett all get a mention, along with a Japanese children’s book called Everyone Poops.
Convenient to hold while seated, entertaining, and easy to digest, Flushed makes for fine bathroom reading.
