Soaking Up Literature

I was sorting a big box of small books from the Cleveland collection yesterday and right away stumbled on one that provided me with much merriment, not to mention an addition to my books about books collection. It’s a homely little trifle not worth the cost of a small naked coffee at Starbucks. But I read something in I Have A Book by George and Eleanor Stewart that made me laugh right out loud. It also reminded me that life’s most gratifying pleasures can seem almost too ordinary to mention, which is why we need people like George and Eleanor to nudge us in the direction of the good life.

George and Eleanor, as you probably guessed, were a married couple. She designed beautiful interiors while George published books for a living – serious books too with titles like Geography As Human Destiny, and my favorite, The Language of Politics: Studies In Quantitative Semantics. Anyway, in 1940 they combined their expertise and published I Have A Book (cover price fifty cents)  about creative book shelving designed to look fabulous in ANY room and provide homeowners with a lifetime of both cerebral and aesthetic hedonism on even the smallest budget. But, clever though it may have been in its day it’s all been-there/done-that now, so the shelving ideas were pretty much lost on me.

What I really loved was chapter two, conveniently titled Two, which  makes it ever so easy to find it at will for further reference. The point Two makes  (though I do think the logic’s rather flawed)  is that a  bookcase recessed into one of the walls surrounding the bathtub would allow the bather to instantly grab anything from poetry to adventure while lolling about in a tub filled with water steamy enough to fog the mirror like the mists of Brigadoon. I know  what you’re thinking. I, too, thought of musty books and the price of heavy duty ventilation systems. So let’s just agree upfront that storing books permanently in the bath is probably not a great idea and get on with the good part which is this -- The Ancient and Independent Order of Soakers, A  Non-Profit, Non-Political, Non-Sectarian Organization of People Who Like to Read in the Bathtub. It had 15,000 members including H.G. Wells, Lowell Thomas, Ed Sullivan, Max Lerner and George Bernard Shaw. And, no, I did not make it up and neither did George and Eleanor. They read all about it in Reader’s Digest.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of joiner. The only thing I belong to is NOBS, so it would take something pretty special to get me to sign up for a group. But here I am desperately yearning to become  a card carrying member of  the Ancient and Independent Order of Soakers. I even looked it up online and figured  I could be a sustaining member, the kind that just pays dues, gets the  card, and never has to wear a name tag at the annual convention. Besides, reading in the bathtub is (mostly) a solitary pursuit anyway, so there shouldn’t even BE a convention. And there’s not. Sadly, the Ancient and Independent Order of Soakers, went down the drain some time ago.

Of course every single one of the reknowned members were men. I'm wondering if the non-reknowned were too which may have been a huge contributing factor in its demise. I am yet to meet a man who lolls in the bath. Most of my women friends don’t either. But I am a loller. If time permits I would take a lingering scented bath with book and bubbles over a shower any day. I even have a painted sign on the bathroom wall to REMIND me of it, though a lot of good that does. I’m still lucky to get a lingering bath once a week.

Of course reading in the tub can be hard on the books. I’ve more than once dozed off for a few seconds and gently and unknowingly dipped the bottom of a book in the water. I’ve also set the book on the floor next to the tub only to drip all over it after I got out of the suds. But does any of that deter me? No, it does not. I wouldn’t try it with a rare book, or a book that costs a small fortune, but anything else is fair game. In fact, today I plan to seek out an hour for cranberry scented bubbles and a brand new bar of lavender soap from when Nancy went to Provence. The book du jour will be The Lives of Margaret Fuller by John Matteson who won the Pulitzer for his excellent  biography, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. Love those transcendentalists!

But that being said, I still think the Ancient and Independent Order of Soakers should be resurrected. I’d join for sure. And so would my friend Jessica. And I think Oprah would too, so there’s three members right there. Anybody want to make it four?