The best books to read in a nightclub bathroom

A few weekends ago, I descended the stairs of Utrecht’s most beloved techno club, Basis, into the structural bunker that is the club’s bathroom. Sweaty and visually impaired by the dim lighting of the red LED, I was unphased by the long bathroom queue. My friend, also a second-year literature student, tapped my shoulder to bring my attention to him, a Basis club employee - tasked with the brutal job of monitoring the bathroom queue - sat at his table with a Penguin Classics copy of Franz Kafka’s The Castle. 

We were completely enchanted by this young man reading Kafka in the club. He was so mysterious. And Kafka, hardly a comfortable read in any atmosphere, let alone with harsh music from the club above clearly audible, shirtless sticky club attendees flowing in and out of the ten graffiti-painted stalls. How could he even see the print in that light? At that point, he was twenty-something pages into the book, so I’ll never know what he thought of it.

Kafka-in-the club-guy left me thinking about the nature of reading in public for a long time afterwards. And he's not the only one, people are constantly reading on public transport and in busy cafes, just about anywhere too loud to focus on the words on the page. If it's not effective, and it's decidedly not really reading, it has to serve another purpose. One assumption is that reading in public is more of a performative act, as when you read in a bustling part of town, you’re saying something about yourself. You’re saying that you’re intelligent, that your taste in books is refined, that there’s more to you than meets the eye. The Basis employee is an example of this, he remains forever a character of intrigue. 

It seems that reading has become decidedly an attractive recreation. There are entire Instagram accounts dedicated to identifying “hot” individuals who read in public. 

Now, every time I go to a cafe in the city, students are reading tattered copies of The Catcher in The Rye, cigarette in hand, accompanied by a half-drunk flat white. While researching this article, I was sitting in one of these trendy city cafes, watching the man sitting to my right, who for 10 minutes flipped through what from the title sounded like a terribly plain book, The Psychedelic Renaissance. In these 10 minutes, he managed to study the cover, bask in the sun (the weather was great, we were outside), and spark conversation about his book with at least four people. What he did not do though, was read very much of The Psychedelic Renaissance. 

I always look to see what strangers are reading. It might be pretentious on both our parts, them for reading a classic on the bus, me for caring what classic they're reading. Very often, I am the stranger reading in public, on the bus, on the beach, whenever I’m waiting for a friend or an appointment. There are books I somehow deem too embarrassing to read in public, so I usually opt for an “intellectual” read, usually something nonfiction, or a classic. 

So I have to ask myself - how likely is it that I’m going to get anywhere reading East of Eden in the pub? How much of public reading is performative, a show to portray ourselves as intellectual and mysterious? Or is it to impress elderly people on public transport? Amanda Krowitz claims there is a growing desire to “be publicly recognized as someone who is well-read”. In toting difficult and unapproachable books around in public, we paint an image of ourselves that is undeniably intelligent.

The conclusion that I’ve come to after reflecting on the Basis employee for a few months is blatantly obvious. People who read in public are mysterious, and they’re hot too. Reading has become trendy, and how bitter can we be that people want to tote around their copies of Moby Dick. And to think of all the reading recommendations we can get by watching others read, it's like a community book club, where no one discusses what they're reading, and everyone is attractive. 

Here is a list of 5 books I think would be great for performative reading, coming from a literature student and a long-time performative reader. Especially suited for places like the club bathroom:

1. The First Century After Beatrice - Amin Maalouf 
2. The Castle -  Franz Kafka 
3. Intimations - Zadie Smith
4. White Nights -  Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. The Third Policeman - Flann O’Brien