This is the third Mary Roach book I've reviewed on this blog and as such, I think you'll realize by now that I really like her. She takes subjects that interest her but that she knows little about, researches them and writes easily accessible and extremely interesting books. I'm a bit addicted to them.
The most recent book of her's I've read is Bonk. Bonk is all about the science behind sex. As such, it was kind of embarrassing to read on the train. However, despite the initial squirm you get pulling it out of your bag and determining if it's worse to let people see the cover or open it up on your lap and let your next seat over neighbor glance over and catch a sentence about vibrators, you're quickly pulled in.
The interesting thing about the science behind sex is just how recent everything is. Sex is such a taboo subject, especially in America, that most studies began, at the earliest, in the 1950s and even those were very scandalous and not taken super seriously. Beyond that, funding was near impossible because it was just so very hard to convince people that this was a thing that needed to be studied, let alone figure out how to get human test subjects for most of it.
This book was extremely interesting and posed a lot of questions I didn't even realize where questions, let alone what the answers were. For instance, how does one actually investigate what happens in the vagina during sex? Seriously. That is a thing I have never pondered but once it's asked, you kind of just sit there and think "…yeah. How does that work?" The answer: penis camera.
Seriously, though. Stuff like that. Stuff you would never even think about. It's all there and in the humorous, curious style of Mary Roach. It's not for the faint-hearted, as most of her books are but it's very interesting and, yes, entertaining. Definitely worth a read, if only in the privacy of your own home.
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