I wish books were waterproof.

better if they could be waterproof without changing the texture of the pages

Oh yes, agreed. A decent novel made out of those ultra-poofy plastic pages they use in making bath books for very young children would be really annoying, unwieldy, but slightly cool.

text to speech in a soothing eastern european accent and a huge FO sound system, Rachel.

Uh, that'd require a computer.

I have tried listening to audiobooks in the bath, but I stopped. The humidity seemed to be causing temporary harm to them, and I was afraid it'd cause permanent damage. As they are library books, I especially do not want to damage them.

computer and amp in another room: speakers in plastic bags in the bathroom

I don't have the hardware to do that. I have a desktop, the speakers won't reach that far.

Books are expensive, waterproof books would be more expensive. I think I shall pause my reading until I finish my bath.

But I think is a good idea anyway, Rachel.

It's not really an idea, in that I recognize the impracticality. Thus, just a wish, because baths are often boring.

baths are often boring

not so much for the onlookers ...

hmmm ... the previous comment seems to have been a trap ... what is my hind paw doing in my mouth?

Speaker wire's cheap and you just need some male to female adapters for what I guess is 3.5mm stereo from somewhere like Radio Spares. You might have to do a bit of soldering to make up your leads, but soldering kits are dirt cheap these days.

And I'd need a person to do it. That's much, much harder or more expensive to get.

Either that or give up baths over 10 minute showers and tell yourself a story while you're in there.

Depends on how bad you want it. You either spend money or learn some new stuff. You like a challenge, don't you?

Maybe your disablities get in the way of fiddly soldering, I don't know. It wouldn;t cost much and you've probably got nerdy bloke mates who'd do it for a cup of tea.

I don't have nerdy bloke males who would do it for a cup of tea. I'm not sure I could do it. And showering is not an option most of the time.

I can survive boring baths. It'd just be nice if books were waterproof. Especially as often what I want is to continue reading the book I am reading.

Put up an advert for one in Trader Joe's?

Wanted: Bloke. Good with hands. Muust be able to solder and into basic electronics. No riff-raff.

I don't think I want a random male I don't know whose only qualification is that they answered an ad to do some soldering for tea in my house. Nor do I have a way to get to Trader Joe's, but I assume the spirit of it was somewhere and on the internet would be an acceptable substitute. I do have the ability to get onto the internet.

There you go then. Try craigslist or whatever it is (note, I've never looked at craigslist, so I don't know what it is), or the good old yellow pages.

There are cheap and cheerful solutions and loads of folk out there who'd love to help, I'm sure.

That ad is no good. It sounds like I want a boyfriend. I'm familiar with those. They're great, but not so useful at getting random tasks done in a timely way. What you'll get from one of them is either the task done, if they happen to be in the mood to do it and have the parts handy or they'll tell you that it's really easy and they'll do it for you. And the latter is of no use at all, because I have no need to be told the task is really easy and that other people will do it for me as that doesn't get me any closer to my goal of having the task done.

(Oh sure, it might get me a friend, but friends are often even less helpful than boyfriends in that they'll often tell you that the task is really easy and they're sure you can get it done and they'd be willing to do it for you if they ever were around with the parts and it was convenient.)

Not to insult friends or boyfriends - wonderful people. They actually do lots of useful things. But for non-urgent tasks you simply want done, it's a completely unreliable system. You might get it in an hour, you might not get it in years.

And worse, are geeks. They'll tell you how there is a slightly more complicated solution that is much, much, much better and that they don't want to implement that kludge, they'll do it right. But they don't have the parts right now... and they need to work one bit out first.

I'll pop over; give me 1/2 an hour.

or buy cheaper "previously owned" paperbacks, and don't fret about the occasional splash ...

sorry 'bout the rather creepy-dog remark earlier

Too much water-damage will make it impossible to read. So, I might never get to the end of the story. That would be no good. It's a matter of degree, but I am risking the book.

The underwater adventures of Jacques Cousteau should be OK.

I read a book on box girder bridge building once: it was riveting.

Влажные книги забавляют меня.

Tie it to the ceiling.

Make your own electrostatic flat speakers.

I tried the DIY trip, Herr Kaninchen: it didn't wash.

Ever made any of these speakers of which you speak?

Read Cradle to Cradle by McDonough and Braungart.

Why aren't there such books yet? O_o

Capitalism.

I read in the bathtub all the time. All you need is a towel handy. Never had a problem save for a few damp fingerprints that dry rather quickly and don't impede my print. If you have one of those over the tub racks, they're fairly cheap, just keep an extra towel under the book and dry your hands between steps. There should be a way to make paper water repellant the same way some clothing is without changing the texture too much. I bet it wouldn't cost that much.

I'd have Martin Jarvis pop in to read to me: great voice; does a lot of readings on Radio 4 through his own production company: not cheap, mind.

Aqua Erotica (and its siblings) are both water proof and NOT made out of the airfilled plastic pages that kiddie books are. I love those things. You can take them in the bath, splash, and it doesn't mater.

As for the conditioning thing vs regular books, I do it all the time. I condition my hair, rinse off my hands in the water, dry them with the towel that I keep by the tub, then pick up the book again. If your toilet isn't close enough to rest your book on while you are doing clean-stuff, bring in a stool or something.

Even when I'm just taking a bath, sans book, I always have my cell phone near by--and the towel, too :) Multi-tasking is your friend!

I refuse to read this whole diatribe, but:

Rachael: I have plenty of speaker wire and hook-ups. If you forward me some general lengths and a mailing address I'd be happy to send you an, uh what are these things called, auditory elongation device? If you aren't comfortable with sending out your address to a relative stranger then maybe a mate's or a PO Box? A long bath listening to a beautiful story is worth it.

The Claim: I didn't understand why anyone (that was capable) took a bath, over a shower, until the last few months. At some point I took a book into the bath with me (when I wasn't feeling well) and now I can't seem to talk myself into getting out. I'll read and read until the water is so cold I HAVE to run a bit of shower just to warm myself up again.

I could make references to the womb, and whatnot, but I think it's just nice to be able to relax.

I don't like books. Too much turning pages. And they're hard to hold if I'm sleepy. Computer eye implants anyone?

I don't like books. Too much turning pages. And they're hard to hold if I'm sleepy. Computer eye implants anyone?

@asterisk_the_symbol:
I assume you repeated that because you have 2 eyes? :)

1) what if neither of your eyes worked?
2) what is your fiction derived from if not novels?
3) what about those who CAN'T see (see #1, pun intended).
4) what if you like books on "tape"? what if a title you're incredible interested in isn't available "on tape"?

I know all these weren't related to bathing, but neither was your comment.

Hmm, I haven't tried hooking up speakers to the audiobook player. I wonder how easily I could do that. First, I'd need a set of speakers... but I have a stereo with a set of speakers. Then I'd need to see if they can be connected to the audiobook player...

Oh right, that doesn't work unless I fill the bath before getting in, because I can't start the audiobook once I'm in the bath, and if I start it while the water is running, then I can't hear it unless it's way too loud.

I think that means I'm stuck with music and not books if I do the speaker setup anyway. Which isn't bad. But it would require moving speakers around before and after every bath, which is probably a bad idea, even if they would reach.

fixedd: ear implants anyone?

if there's a small window or hole in the wall or something like that in your shower, you could put up a projector

@Rachel: I use an old set of computer speakers. I hooked them up to my iPod before it died... now I just hook up to my laptop. What do you listen to them on now?

My audiobook player is issued by the US government through the Library of Congress program to provide audiobooks for the blind and print disabled. It plays the special format audiobooks used with that program. It is a large, rectangular device with a place to put in the cassettes and a built in speaker.

Holy 1970s Batman... I just looked it up. Four-track cassette tapes?!?!?!

BTW: Apparently they're having some problems upgrading to digital.

I just use my CD player, which is an ATX power supply with a paperclip shoved into the mobo connector. It's attached to an anomalous CD-ROM drive that has play, pause, and track advance buttons. There is also a fan.

That picture is exactly what the setup looks like. Yup, four track. The idea is, as far as I know, to make sure that you cannot listen to the audiobooks on a normal tape player for copyright reasons.

Is there an audio-out, like for headphones?

There is, as I have used headphones with it. So, I assume speakers could be hooked up to it if I had a spare set of speakers or if I removed a set of speakers from something I currently use and used them temporarily with that whenever I wanted to use it. But I'd still run into the problem of not being able to start it while in the bath, so I'd have to fully draw the bath before entering or not be able to hear it over the running water. And I'd still need to move the speakers around before and after each use. So, it'd be a finicky level of setup and cleanup just for a bath.

No, I was just asking because of the copyright thing... it'd be pretty simple to run a cord out of it and into a recorder and get a near perfect copy.

Oh... illegal though. It is a little weird how they put so much effort to avoid illegal actions in one way and make it easy in another though.

Yep... just like DRM it's pointless and a waste of money in the end.

That's unusual kit, Rachel; most interesting. Thx for posting, FX.