Toilets of the World

When I think of entertaining reading material, I rarely think of toilets. "Toilets of the World," however, is an amusing homage to the endeavor of excretion. Divided by continents, this book examines the most unusual of all toilets from the world over, from the fantastically complex (I would not want to, for instance, use the toilet on a submarine lest I inadvertently configure the valves incorrectly and release "a high-pressure explosion of sewage throughout the submarine at a force of 225 pounds per square inch") to mere holes in the dirt. Part and parcel of this book explains not only the physical structure of these toilets, but also the local customs of different cultures. The lack of toilet paper use in Turkey and India (the left hand substitutes...) is a key example of cultural toilet use differences beyond the obvious squat versus sit elimination methods.There are many unusual toilets in this book, but for my money, the toilets of Asia take the cake, especially the urinals in the Lemina Building in Tokyo, which electronically sense when a man approaches, then burst into music and move the urinal vigorously hoping the man can accurately track the target, all the while taunting him with disparaging remarks and engaging in flash photography. There is an equally frightening experience awaiting the women in the same building which results in a bad case of claustrophobia, and features not only a giant mechanical geisha kissing the unsuspecting victim on the knees, but also a light show, fake thunder, and a hideous androgynous mechanical freak appearing from a secret compartment with the toilet paper. I guess it beats a hole in the ground.Five stars for making peristalsis an interesting cultural journey, a feat I had hardly imagined possible.

Ok. toilets equate to "yuk", but I have always enjoyed them. First, friend of the modern era, we have them! Some are good, some not so good, some are bad (clogged and filled to the brim). But we have them, and they get a bad rap even though they do us a good thing, mostly.My copy of this book is placed just for fun; I put it on an easily broken chain (if anyone really wants it) in my guest bedgroom's bath. Inside the book I personally annotated certain toilets around the world that I visited personally (really), including one at the top of Peru (outhouse, basically), and some Asian toilets I remember (2 yrs. in Thailand). I loved every place I lived, not because of the toilets, but I remember them well. So, the irony, I dreaded using some of them at the time, but how fondly I look at the pictures now. What does that mean?My, my. In short, this book is a book about toilets. Good pictures, primitive history, and rather fun if you are sitting on a toilet and don't have anything else to do while you wait to finish. It's too sparse, and only for fun. Other books tell much more about sewage and piping, and getting water to your house, and waste away from it, an interesting history of just two centuries.. Toilets, that is all this book tells; don't expect more. It's fun.

I bought 3 for my husband, a son in Phillie, and a son in Jakarta Indonesia. This had been seen at relatives in Iowa. The guys like it. Entertaining while in the library!

I got this book as a kind of joke gift for a family member, but I found myself actually going through it (a few pictures at a time), and it is quite interesting. My appreciation of the material is enhanced by having recently read  The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters , which is about toilets and what happens to the stuff that goes down them (highly recommended).The pictures in the present book are beautifully taken and often striking in their imagery. The contrast between toilets in the wild (on the shores of a dry riverbed in Africa) vs in civilization (fantastic toilets of the very rich) is most striking. So, although it certainly can qualify as a bathroom book, it actually is informative as well easy to read.

My son loves bathrooms, and I knew he had to have this book. It's been a HUGE hit! I am now learning way more about different toilets throughout the world than I ever wanted to, but he's happy. :-)

I bought these as for a "white elephant" office gift exchange. I briefly thumbed through it when it arrived, and it honestly looked interesting! I got a bottle of stinky perfume-y lotion and managed to barter my coworker into taking it so I could take the "toilet book" off of her hands.score! what was meant to be a silly gift is actually something I made an effort to get back, and looking through it more thoroughly, I found it to be really interesting, and I'm glad I snagged it!

I am a self-confessed toiletbagger. I enjoy travelling to new places and checking out the facilities. This book piqued my interest and I awaited the arrival at my home. I was not disappointed. Appropriately placed in the "reading room" I enjoyed leafing through the pages and encountering some familiar scenes. There are some interesting tidbits about international personalities, common cultural treatments of one of the few unifying aspects of human existence and outright amazing feats of plumbing wizardry. I have a trip to London planned and will be taking the addresses of several facilities along in hopes of experiencing them firsthand.

This is the perfect coffee-table book for a party; at least, for the parties *I* like to have. It's a great ice-breaker to be able to look someone in the eye and say in a serious voice, "Which toilet is your favorite? Do you prefer the one with the mannequin, or the weird hold in the ground?" If you're tired of debating the same old politics, it's so nice to have a new avenue for conversation.

ペーパーバック: 256ページ出版社: Merrell (2009/09)ISBN-10: 1858944996　のレビュー　著者はふたりとも女性、世界中のトイレを巡り歩いた写真集である。ずいぶん評判がいいし、女性二人による実地体験なら面白そうだと買ってみた。結果は、可もなく不可もなし。　この種の本は、日本にはもっと面白いものがある。また、しっかりとした民俗学・人類学的な考察をした研究もある。そのあとで、これを手に取ると、あまりにも内容が薄い。奇抜は意匠のトイレルーム、景色のよい中にあるトイレなど、いくらでも見つかるわけで、そのいくつかを紹介されても物足りない。

Well what a topic you didn't know would be so fascinating! Having travelled to many places and experienced various questionable, and confusing, toilets, this is a great book for me. Around the world in toilets ha. I actually saw this in a cafe toilet in Wales, loved in, stayed in there so long as I was looking at it (meaning my lunch companions had different ideas of what was happening in there), and bought it on Amazon there and then.

Interesting and entertaining; a good Christmas read. But I just HATE the use of the (American/plebeian British) word "toilet" - the correct word is LAVATORY.

Light hearted but surprisingly informative look at one of life's essentials. Raised a larf at the birthday, and proved an interesting read thereafter.

Bought this for my fiancé who had been telling me toilet jokes and taking pictures of random toilets when he travelled. Great selection of different toilets with lots of photos and interesting facts. He has put it in his bathroom and loves it!