Not what you asked for, but perhaps suitable for your intended usage, I'd suggest you look at the BRI series.

Although nominally produced by "The Bathroom Readers Institute," ones I've seen have mostly been printed by Barnes & Noble, and are frequently on the "discount" table at Barnes for $10 or less. They claim to have produced 15 volumes by now, and some are available in "multi-volume" compendia, up to 800 or so pages.

Although not documented quite well enough for citation in your next dissertation, articles seem to be well researched, and are varied enough for distraction while you're waiting for something to happen - but don't really want to be too deep into something when it does.

From the intro to "Uncle John's Four-Ply Bathroom Reader:"

"Uncle John's Bathroom Reader is the first book especially for people who love to read in the bathroom. It was conceived in 1987, when a group of socially active citizens in Berkeley, California realized that the publishing industry had plenty of books for every room of the house (bedside readers, cookbooks, coffee-table books, etc.) except the bathroom—where up to 60% of Americans read. It was clearly time for bathroom readers to come out of the water closet and "Say it loud, I read in there and I'm proud!"

"Consequently, they formed The Bathroom Readers' Institute to fight for the rights of bathroom readers everywhere.

Under their sensitive guidance, The Reader has been specially designed with the needs of bathroom readers in mind: It's full of brief but interesting articles that can be read in a few seconds, or a few minutes. It covers a variety of subjects (so a reader never has to settle for the "same old thing"). And it's arranged so a reader can just flip it open to any page; no planning, no searching. We hope you enjoy it. As we say at the Bathroom Readers' Institute: "Go With the Flow.""

Not for every unfilled moment, but for a break from the serious stuff when the need arises. If you replace "bathroom" with "waiting room" in the above, it works for me, sometimes.

John