It's that time of year again -- the annual test of your ability to present family members with gifts that offend neither their tastes nor yours. My parents often wrap up for me a not-so-subtle hint that I'd be better off with God in my life: a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, for example. They just can't help themselves. No matter how hard one tries, it's inevitable that your gifts say more about you than they do about their receivers. And my philosophy is that you'll do better if you embrace this fact rather than fight it.

For this reason, I've been looking to send my parents something this year to communicate my most deeply-held value: my devotion to the principles articulated in PoopReport. I was stumped about what to send until I learned of Public Toilet Design [1] (Firefly, $29.95). Written by Marta Serrats and Cristina Valle, this coffee-table book features over 600 color photos of the world's best restrooms. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't be sure that these authors' tastes are any more refined than those on display in that Kitschfest called America's Best Restroom Award [2]. However, the reflections of Saria Tagliaferri, the "creative force" behind the book, offer hope:

"The publishing world is full of books on country houses, or the prettiest places in the mountains, or the best pie in the world and so on, but nothing on toilets," she observed during a recent phone interview. "This book makes a good argument that even when you're in the toilet, the ambience in a place has to carry through to that space. It's not just about attention to cleanliness, but to aesthetic details." Sounds to me like she's been dividing her reading time between PoopReport and Martha Stewart Living.

[3]

Ms. Tagliaferri goes on. "Until a few years ago, no one would ever talk about toilets, but now they're becoming the most beautiful, funny, curious, inventive rooms. The design outlook these days is that you must create an atmosphere, and no room should be neglected, not even the restroom."

It may be a mystery to Ms Tagliaferri why toilet talk is getting easier, but it's no mystery to us at PoopReport. So today it's a coffee-table book on luscious loos; tomorrow it will be a Nobel Peace Prize for Dave. And I want my parents to be ready for this glorious day.