Bonk by Mary Roach

The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

In which we learn about the science of sex, the history of sex research and cutting edge sex scientists.


Mary Roach tackles sex in Bonk with her usual sincerity, humor and rigor. It really is a winning combination. The book is consistently edifying and entertaining as we learn about sex research pioneers figuring out the basics of intercourse right up to current research on the physiology of orgasms!

Spook by Mary Roach

Yay Mary Roach! She is always fun to read! Spook is subtitled "Science Tackles the Afterlife" and that pretty much sums it up. This book goes into all kinds of people looking into what happens to the mind/soul after death. The methods and topics range from bizarre to silly to genuinely scientific. Plausible explanations are given for all kinds of phenomena that people take as evidence of souls or ghosts. For example, electric fields and infra-sounds both can cause ghost-like hallucinations. Roach writes Spook with her characteristic humor and passion for science!


I think that Roach succeeds in offering an honest exploration of the science and pseudoscience of the afterlife, without being tendentious or biased. I went into the book with a higher degree of certainty regarding the so-called soul's demise at death than I left with, which really surprised me. Some of the legitimate researchers she interviewed definitely makes me think there could be more to the whole soul thing than I had thought! I am not saying this book suggests the existence of a typical, cloudy and harp-intensive heaven (if you go in thinking that you may be disappointed) but it does suggest that maybe some energy or something could exist that is not (yet) properly accounted for by science.


Mary Roach's excellent style can be summed up as a combination science-mindedness, great writing and humor. She interjects one or the other in frequently, and it really works for me. Her humor often uses a certain formula. Roach will note an amusing phrase, or a word used in a funny context in her interviews or research, and then shortly later refer to the phrase again in a slightly different context as if it were a normal thing to say. It cracks me up every time!

One problem I have with Roach's writing is her casual references to animal cruelty. She did this extensively in Stiff as well as in Spook. It diminishes my enjoyment of a book (or TV show, or movie...) to feel like I have to have my mental guard up against vivid images of disturbing things. I am sure the horrible ways in which pseudo-scientist researchers trying to measure souls killed little animals is important to the subject at hand, but I really, really could have done without it.

All in all, this is a great book. I wouldn't hesitate to suggest it to most adults. Probably not kids, because it has rather adult themes at times and it even disturbed me in places. I would suggest this book to my die-hard atheist friends, my religious friends, or my new-age mom. I even suggested it to my fiance who is very defensive of his idea of the afterlife! Whatever your perspective on the afterlife is, Mary Roach's humor, tact, use of science and research and disinterestedness is engaging, fascinating and fun! I can't wait to read her other books!

Stiff by Mary Roach

Stiff by Mary Roach is a surprisingly hilarious and comprehensive look at what all happens to bodies after a person dies. Specific topics include various scientific uses for cadavers, organ donation, and less useful ways people enjoying having their corpses preserved or disposed of. It had vast potential to be crude, callous, inane or pandering, but Stiff is none of those things. Roach did a great job with inherently strange subject matter!


Although I understand Roach engaged in substantial background research before embarking upon this project, the book is mainly centered around interviews. She interviews people learning to do medical procedures on corpses, scientists who try to understand plane crashes and other disasters through analyzing the human remains involved, and other people involved in body businesses.

The book is a little tendentious, which would bother me if I didn't agree with Roach on the benefits of organ/body donation and cremation relative to burial. I have trouble imagining someone who is all about intact burial and the dignity of cadavers and all that getting really excited about this book, but I would be the first to admit I don't really understand that viewpoint in general.

My main problems with this book were the specific images I will never be able to scour from my brain. To some extent I knew what I was in for, this obviously being a book about corpses, but bleh. I am super squeamish and actually got light-headed in certain sections! I have two phobias: wormy things and things touching my bellybutton. I can't really hold the inclusion of a bit about wormy things IN bellybuttons against Roach, since it's a personal problem of mine and it is sort of weird!

The part I really didn't like at all, and sort of wish I hadn't read, was Roach's tangential section on head transplants. It had little to do with human corpses, and a lot to do with sadistic experiments on LIVE animals (like puppies, *sob*) that would not be expected to yield anything medically useful. I am seriously going to have nightmares for a long time about what Russian "scientists" do/did to dogs and what Americans are doing to monkeys. I have gradually come to accept that some animal experimentation is necessary for medical progress, but I would expect people to work to minimize suffering and maximize results that could be applied to save lives. I feel like these "experiments" must have been designed specifically to maximize the suffering of the tortured animals while yielding no results that could be used for fields of study other than torture. Sorry about the tangent, I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if this portion wasn't included.

Despite the can't unsee sections, I did really enjoy this book. Roach is a really remarkably funny writer and has the ability to inject humor in unexpected places without diminishing the point. She got really great interviews and attacked the strange subject matter with admirable abandon. Any book she writes has a place on my to-read list!