Remember Joe the Plumber, the apolitical everyman who wandered into the election and electrified the nation with his blunt common sense and folksy wisdom? Well, as one of The Economist's mystery bloggers noticed, The American Spectator asked him to offer up some Christmas reading for the masses, and his picks are, uh, surprising.
Temples of Convenience—and Chambers of Delight (Lucinda Lambton): "It shed a great deal of light on the development of the lavatory, or as we say over home, 'the hutch.'" Most of the privies in the book are "the product of non-union labor." A plus! Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper (Wallace Reyburn): "Just when you think you know everything about plumbing, this book comes along." Plumber's Handbook (Howard C. Massey): Particularly useful "on the topics of greasy waste systems, outside waste interceptors, and what for me has been a longtime conundrum, local gas codes." It's also water-resistant. The Theory of Money and Credit (Ludwig von Mises): "It brought monetary theory into the mainstream of economic analysis. It is important reading for these troubled times."
So, three books on toilets and then the work that "brought monetary theory into the mainstream of economic analysis." It's like these folks aren't even trying anymore.
