Who comes up with these things? I’m referring here to National Bathroom Reading Month. Seriously, what will they think of next? National Lazy Day? No, wait. If you can believe it, we already have one of those, celebrated far and wide on August 10. So that means we have an entire month plus one day that we celebrate by sitting around and doing nothing, reading books.
I can think of worse things to celebrate, although a proctologist might beg to differ. They probably lobbied long and hard against National Bathroom Reading Month, instead promoting National Don’t Linger in There Month. Apparently they didn’t push hard enough.
But back to the month at hand. National Bathroom Reading Month was first celebrated in 1988, promoted by the Bathroom Readers’ Institute, which I have on good authority has two employees: Bob and his uncle Bob, proud owners of Bob’s Plumbing and Bookmobile, Inc.
I wonder if the Bobs take donations for their shelves. I’ve got a slew of books I’d like to get rid of. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they are ghastly. And yet somebody must have liked these books enough to publish them, which leads me to believe that my reading tastes have not evolved enough to embrace the slop that passes for good reading these days. Maybe it’s not slop at all; maybe it’s just me exhibiting my dodderingness, unable to keep up with the times.
Truly, there is no dearth of great authors out there that I could be reading. I have an abundance of their books, waiting in my “for later” pile. I’d like to be reading them, but I don’t have time. I barely have time to read all the slop.
Here’s my dilemma. In a couple of months I’m going to start pitching this book of mine to literary agents and editors, and included in that pitch will be the names of two comp book titles. Comp means “comparable” and can be defined as books similar to mine written in the same genre. If I can’t come up with two titles — and they have to be current titles — well, there is no world where I don’t submit two comps. It’s a must, not a maybe.
So far I’ve come up with zero. It’s not for lack of trying. For the past year, I have been on a steady diet of recently-ish published historical fiction narrowed down to the 18th and 19th centuries with a female protagonist. Not one is like mine, not even remotely, and they’re doing me no good sitting around collecting dust. I will gladly donate them to the bathroom library. If you’re crappy and you know it, clap your hands. Everybody, now, if you’re crappy and you know it …
Read a book, sing a song. This week’s offering is from James Carr …
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