I just want to take a moment to sing the praises of Mary Roach, essayist and author of the trilogy of books pictured here. Her first was Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers, which dealt (as evidenced in the title) with all the strange things that we do with the dead. Her second, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, took an amateur-scientist-cum-skeptic’s approach to the possibility of human “souls,” seeking verifiable evidence that our future may hold more than that of mere cadavers. And her third, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, is an unorthodox, unconventional and unreserved survey of the often bizarre history of the “science” of sex. I read Roach’s books out of order, beginning with Stiff (which I passed off to almost everyone who would dare to read it a few years ago), then on to Bonk, and now to Spook. (Interestingly, Bonk is the least interesting of the three.) Roach’s prose style reminds me a lot of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, which is a good thing, as they all evince a kind of unapologetic curiosity in things unknown, as well as a hubristic confidence in the merit of the intutions of the unlearned.When it comes to “real” science, I definitely count myself among the unlearned laity. So, I am happy that there are people like Roach out there, who will track down the experts, dig through the archives, survey the scholarly (and non-scholarly) literature, and trace the genealogies of those objects and activities of real wonder: death, sex, the afterlife. Plus, her books are an almost bottomless well from which to draw cocktail-party anecdotes. Go buy these books. Right now. You’re welcome.
