Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex - Hardcover

Roach, Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393064646 ISBN 13: 9780393064643

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008

Synopsis

The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex.

The study of sexual physiology―what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better―has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey’s attic. Mary Roach, “the funniest science writer in the country” (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn’t Viagra help women―or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary Roach is the author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Her writing has appeared in Outside, Wired, National Geographic, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. She lives in Oakland, California.

From AudioFile:

Mary Roach has been called the funniest science writer in America. Now the author who brought us STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS tackles the often hilarious study of sex. The topic seems fraught with possibilities for embarrassment, but in Roach's capable hands we forge ahead where few have dared to look. Roach's writing is an unusual amalgam of avid curiosity and dry asides that bring comic relief just when the details get a bit intense. Sandra Burr narrates as if she's lecturing from a textbook, which only adds to the dry irony of some of the material. In other hands it could well be over-the-top. D.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0393064646
• ISBN 13: 9780393064643
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320