-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
by Mary Roach
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. 16 illustrations.
"[S]he handles the nuances of discussing sex and sexuality very nicely....Highly recommended" - Library Journal.
"The passion to know, in the face of censure and propriety, is what advances our understanding of the world. A lively, hilarious and informative look at science's dirty secrets." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Roach's forays offer fascinating evidence of the full range of human weirdness, the nonsense that has often passed for medical science and, more poignantly, the extreme lengths to which people will go to find sexual satisfaction." - Publishers Weekly.
This information about Bonk was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: John Madere
Mary Roach is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, including Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers; Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. Her book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, was released in September 2021. Mary's books have been published in 21 languages, and her second book, Spook, was a New York Times Notable Book. Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, the New York Times Magazine, and the Journal of Clinical Anatomy, among others. She was a guest editor of the Best American Science and Nature Writing series and an Osher Fellow with the San Francisco Exploratorium and serves as an advisor for Orion and Undark magazines. She has been a finalist for the Royal Society's Winton Prize and a ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Mary Roach's Website
.gif)
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
