Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008)

Brilliant stuff, abut as funny as you might imagine science writing could be. Of course, the subject helps, but even when writing about leg-crossingly icky genital surgery Mary Roach makes it darkly humorous. ( )

Well up to the standard of Stiff - funny, curious, empathetic, and informative. ( )

This book covers so much ground that everyone will know some of what Roach reports and everyone will be made queasy by her accounts of this or that research study or operation, but I learned a lot from this book, which reports on everything from the operations to install penile implants to the manufacture of vibrators. ( )

topic is interesting, execution is dull - perhaps I will take out the book and skim the rest ( )

I found this book to be irreverent and wildly entertaining in spots. Roach's style works for me, though I would like to see some scientific treatments of some of her chapters. There are some squirm-worthy passages in Bonk, especially when we get to the livestock chapters. I've heard some negative feedback about the parts where Roach uses herself as a subject, but I found the MRI scene with her husband to be hilarious. I hated the random photos, too, as they seemed totally unrelated to anything in the text except in a tangential way.

I say it's worth a read if you are not put off by a cavalier and smirk-filled attitude towards sex of all stripes and further if you enjoy the sparkling surface of science rather than the murky depths. ( )