Review: What's Your Poo Telling You by Josh Richman and Anish Sheth

If you saw this little book at the bookstore, you probably glanced at it, chuckled, and wondered who in their right mind would buy it, right? Well, the answer is: my sister. Because she thought it would be funny in my husband's Christmas stocking. And she was right. But as quirky and funny as this book looks on the surface, it is surprisingly interesting and fact-filled too. Not that it's not funny. Because it is. Very funny. Very, very funny. And in the course of the couple of days it took me to make my way through it, the noises coming out of our powder room included a lot of giggles.

If you have boys in your life, you know that poo is always funny. And Richman and Sheth have proved it. They have labeled and named every conceivable kind of poo your body can produce, describing it by consistency, smell, and feel as it leaves your body.  The euphemisms for each stool type are hilarious.  Each brief chapter starts out humorously, almost like a comedian's riffing on each sort of poo, but is followed by some truly informative facts about the reason each poo looks or smells or feels the way it does. The science is easily digested by the layman while still being completely sound. They discuss the characteristics of your colon and the importance of water and fiber in your diet to keep your gastro-intestinal tract healthy. But they do it in the context of what you're looking at in the bowl and while making you giggle at the same time, no mean feat.

Be forewarned that reading this funny and informational little gem will have you checking out the contents of your toilet bowl and cross referencing with the book. So if that idea really grosses you out, you might want to steer clear but then you are in danger of never learning fascinating tidbits like which French monarch conducted business while doing his business on the throne or how many poo pellets rabbits can produce in a day.  And you wouldn't want to miss out on such rich party small talk, right?