Stall Edition

Stall Edition

The bathroom reader, returned to its natural habitat.

Pick any story and print it on a single sheet of paper. Tape it to the back of a bathroom door at work, in the pub, at your climbing gym, or at home where the teenagers will pretend not to read it.

At the bottom is a QR code. Scan it and you get a different random story each time, so one poster quietly leads to all the others. Swap the sheet every week or so and you’ve become the building’s librarian.

Please ask before putting anything up somewhere that isn’t yours.

Pick a story

  1. 1The Great Molasses Flood
  2. 2Why Carrots Are Orange
  3. 3The Woman Who Sold the Eiffel Tower
  4. 4The Origin of OK
  5. 5The Wow! Signal
  6. 6Why Honey Never Spoils
  7. 7The Dancing Plague of 1518
  8. 8Bubble Wrap Was Invented as Wallpaper
  9. 9The Tunguska Event
  10. 10Tarrare
  11. 11Australia's Great Emu War
  12. 12Why Shopping Carts Needed Paid Actors
  13. 13Kiruna — The Town That Moved
  14. 14Phantom Islands
  15. 15The Inventor of Pringles Is Buried in a Pringles Can
  16. 16How Velcro Was Inspired by Burrs
  17. 17Why Golf Balls Have Dimples
  18. 18Tsutomu Yamaguchi
  19. 19The Exploding Whale of Florence, Oregon
  20. 20The Voynich Manuscript
  21. 21The Great Stink of London
  22. 22How the Microwave Oven Was Accidentally Invented
  23. 23Tulip Mania
  24. 24The Immortal Jellyfish
  25. 25Why Barns Are Painted Red
  26. 26Centralia
  27. 27The Antikythera Mechanism
  28. 28How Post-it Notes Were Accidentally Invented
  29. 29The London Beer Flood of 1814
  30. 30Whale Falls
  31. 31The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
  32. 32Why Manhole Covers Are Round
  33. 33The Winchester Mystery House
  34. 34How the Caesar Salad Was Invented in Tijuana
  35. 35Giethoorn
  36. 36Ball Lightning
  37. 37The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
  38. 38Why We Use QWERTY Keyboards
  39. 39The Door to Hell
  40. 40How the Slinky Was Accidentally Invented
  41. 41The Zone of Silence
  42. 42Leap Seconds
  43. 43The Library of Unwritten Books
  44. 44Murphy's Law
  45. 45The Great Maple Syrup Heist
  46. 46Why Wombat Poop Is Cube-Shaped
  47. 47The Marree Man
  48. 48How Champagne Was Invented by Accident
  49. 49The Mary Celeste
  50. 50Why Cats Purr
  51. 51The Collyer Brothers
  52. 52The Lake That Turns Animals to Stone
  53. 53The Year Without a Summer
  54. 54Ketchup Was Once Sold as Medicine
  55. 55The Bloop
  56. 56The Woman Who Fell 33,000 Feet
  57. 57The Dyatlov Pass Incident
  58. 58Shakespeare Has No Living Descendants
  59. 59The Phantom Time Hypothesis
  60. 60The Man Who Ate an Entire Airplane
  61. 61How Traffic Lights Were Invented Before Cars
  62. 62The Corpse Flower
  63. 63Why Bananas Are Radioactive
  64. 64The Sailing Stones of Death Valley
  65. 65How the Guillotine Was Designed to Be Humane
  66. 66The Great Stork Derby
  67. 67Why We Have Fingerprints
  68. 68The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic
  69. 69Fordlandia
  70. 70The Kentucky Meat Shower
  71. 71How Elevators Changed Architecture
  72. 72Why the Sea Is Salty
  73. 73The Cobra Effect
  74. 74The Paris Catacombs
  75. 75How Aspirin Was Discovered Twice
  76. 76The Bridge That Soldiers Must Break Step On
  77. 77Why Flamingos Stand on One Leg
  78. 78The Day Sweden Switched Sides of the Road
  79. 79The Shortest War in History
  80. 80Why Old Books Smell Good
  81. 81The Tree That Owns Itself
  82. 82How Mauve Changed Fashion Forever
  83. 83The Whistling Language of La Gomera
  84. 84The Inventor Killed by His Own Invention
  85. 85Cher Ami
  86. 86Why Your Voice Sounds Different on Recordings
  87. 87Hedy Lamarr
  88. 88The Night Witches
  89. 89Nellie Bly
  90. 90The Boy Who Built a Nuclear Reactor
  91. 91How Lego Nearly Went Bankrupt
  92. 92The 1904 Olympic Marathon
  93. 93How Chocolate Became a Candy Bar
  94. 94The Invention of the Fork
  95. 95The Hermitage Cats
  96. 96The Real Robinson Crusoe
  97. 97Why Stradivarius Violins Sound So Good
  98. 98Bobbie the Wonder Dog
  99. 99Why We Get Goosebumps
  100. 100Why Paper Cuts Hurt So Much
  101. 101The Invention of the Zipper
  102. 102The Woman Who Paid Kenya to Plant Trees