What's Your Poo Telling You? by Josh Richman and Anish Seth - For the Curious or Serious

 

Pros: Funny and surprisingly informative

Cons: Only if you don't like poo

 

The Bottom Line: Come on, you know you've always wanted to know about poo.

 

For some reason my soon to be brother-in-law has a strange fascination with poo. I surmise there’s a long story there, though I’m not even sure where that story starts. Anywho, while doing some book shelving one day, I stumbled upon a tiny hardcover book entitled What’s Your Poo Telling You?. How could I not look at it? Book stores have so many wacky books in them, you might never truly realize it until you spend a day in there, seriously perusing the stacks. Try it sometime.

 

After informing my sister and telling her I was thinking of getting it for her fiancee for Christmas (to which she replied with an emphatic “Yes!”), I realized there was absolutely no way I could have this book sitting in my room for several weeks without giving it a read through. It’s a very small book, only about 6 x 4.5 inches or so and only 96 pages. It’s a slim little book, one that can be totally innocuous if you weren’t looking too closely at the shelf.

 

So what is your poo telling you? Depends on what type of poo you happen to have at the time. This book is, in a word, awesome. Hahaha. Really, it goes through all sorts of different poo types, from the perfectly pinched log (or The Clean Sweep as they call it) to Pebble Poo to Performance-enhancing Poo (or as I always called it, Nervous Poo), to numerous others. If there’s a poo type, it’s in here, trust me, complete with some synonyms as well as what Dr. Stool has to say about that particular poo. For example, why some types of poo sink and others float. What causes some poo to come out all snake-like. Why you may have that sense of accomplishment, or Poo-phoria after going. It’s like the pocket encyclopedia to poo!

 

What’s more, you also get little nuggets of information, random trivia, and tidbits of history that all relate to poo in some way or another. Not to mention some rather amusing illustrations. Reading this review you might think, “Gross” or “Weird” or something along those lines, but this book isn’t necessarily all for laughs. It really does have valuable information and after all, since we all do it, there really isn’t anything wrong with wondering about poo and why oh why a few kernels of corn made it all the way through your digestive tract.

 

Honestly, this book gets my full support and I see no reason why someone should get offended by this book (unless that person just really, really does not like poo). I’m not saying you should go out and buy this for grandma (as she might give you a weird look that says, “Why on earth did you buy me this?”), but for yourself or someone you know would have a riot with this book, by all means. Even if you’re uptight about poo, try giving it a read. You may feel yourself loosen up a bit. ;)

 

NT

Notes from the playlist: "Bananaphone" by Raffi

Just Finished (and Highly Recommended)

Voluntary Madness by Norah Vincent

I'd already read Self-Made Man and in that book Norah Vincent mentions that all her work had led her to a bit of a breakdown. She then visited an institution, and after only 4 days, realized what her next project had to be. It became this book, in which she visits three different mental institutions; public, private, and altnerative medicine, and reveals to readers what she finds. Her discoveries are incredibly engrossing. It was hard to stop reading. She also lends her thoughts and even gives us a very candid look into her own mental health and issues. Though she said she set out to show that the system was broken, she realized many different things, that blame lies with more than one person, and that there are ways to heal - it's just a very difficult path.


Notes from the playlist: "Macedonian Morning" by Bill Whelan