Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

Bonk is our second Roach book. It does not disappoint. Excessively foot-noted with tidbits like "nasal congestion is actually an erection in your nose", Bonk is hilarious and educational. As it turns out, after centuries of scientific study, we don't know that much about something totally fundamental to the future of our species.

The researchers Roach encounters (and whose experiments she and her husband participate in) are kind of a strange lot. But you have to value the work they do. I'm glad someone is out there studying how to have better sex.

Roach reviews the research done into human (and often animal) sexuality as far back as records are kept. Some of her juicier finds are at the U.S. Patent office, and others are in the strange opinions of Victorians, Catholic dogma, urologists' offices, and doodles in Leonardo DaVinci's engineering drawings.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys science, history or (God forbid) sex. Mary Roach is a great author who makes sense of scientific jargon and puts herself into all kinds of strange, potentially humiliating situations for her reader's benefit.

Spook - Review 2

Miranda read this last year. 

Her synopsis is good. I really enjoyed this book, it took me less than a week to read, although it was a week in which I spent a good amount of time in airports. 

I found Roach funny and refreshing. As an engineer (with a scientifically inquiring mind) I question somewhat her devotion to science. She skips over a lot of conversation with scientists with the excuse that its scientific jibberish (which it likely is to anyone without a graduate degree in physics or chemistry or neurobiology) but it does sort of hurt her scientific credibility. I would have enjoyed a little more science, but I'm probably a minority. Its a perfect science book for non-scientists. Its really a read for optimistic skeptics.

The facts and fictions are surprising and amusing and they made me want to subscribe to the American Journal of Paranormal Sciences. That seems to be a longstanding page-turner with some stories.

So I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the afterlife, in the bizarre corners of science, or in the history of humans search for the meaning of life. Really anyone could enjoy this book, and I fully intend to read Roach's other works as well.

Spook by Mary Roach

-- Miranda --

I know. I really should be reading the Non-Required book. But I get the feeling I'm not the only one not sticking to the schedule, so I don't really feel all that bad about it.

Anyway, I'm just going to do a quick write-up here. Abby, this is the book I meant to leave with you, but that I left in the hotel room.

Spook: Science tackles the Afterlife is about author Mary Roach's quest to find scientific evidence that the afterlife exists. The most important thing to understand is this: She's not looking to debunk anything, she's trying to prove there is an afterlife. See, she really wants to believe, but she's burdened with a scientist's mind. Faith isn't enough, she wants proof.

Mary's travels take her all over the world. She looks at claims of reincarnation in India and a school for mediums in England. Most of it is very interesting, although the middle section lagged a bit.

Really the best part of the book is Mary's sense of humor. I bought this book for a quarter while out garage sale shopping with my mother and grandmother, and I was reading it in the car when I came across this passage on page 17: "He agreed to tell me the story, but he would not reveal his name. 'I'm better as your Deep Throat,' he said, forever linking in my head the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops with porn movies, a link they really and truly don't need." I literally laughed out loud, and then felt really uncomfortable when my grandmother asked me what was so funny. The book is filled with very witty quips and brilliant footnotes. Yes, I'm praising the book's footnotes.

It's a very good book, but the feedback I've read online gives me the impression that it's the weakest of Roach's three books (Stiff, about cadavers and Bonk, about sex). I'm actually glad that I started with Spook, because if what I've read is right, it's only going to get better from here.