Paul on Roach on Sex

I have previous read the two available books by Mary Roach, Stiff and Spook, and rather enjoyed them, for the most part. Roach is a sort of gonzo journalist-science writer who likes to take odd topics and see how science deals with them. Stiff is subtitled "The Curious Life of Cadavers", and Spook is subtitled "Science Tackles the Afterlife", so I think you probably get the picture.

Anyway, I was interested to read a review in the New York Times (reference below) of her new book, called The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (W.W.Norton & Co., 2008). Evidently she's writing about how science gets on with sex research. Judging from what the reviewer writes, the new opus continues the style established in the first two books, which should make for reasonably fun reading.

All of that was prelude that really has nothing to do with this post, though, whose purpose is merely to quote this paragraph from the review, which I found amusing:

Perhaps it’s petty to criticize a writer for being too curious, but occasionally Roach’s enthusiasm runneth over. In a book best described as lightly organized, Roach’s promiscuous use of footnotes occasionally becomes distracting. Yes, learning how an erection can be compared to nasal congestion is interesting, but not in the middle of major penis surgery. Yes, it is possibly of interest that the name Dorcus was once trendy enough to bestow on a popular embroidery magazine, but need that interrupt a discussion of “rectal electroejaculators”?

[Pamela Paul, "Sexual Advances", New York Times, 30 March 2008.]

Posted on March 30, 2008 at 22.39 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book

One Response

Subscribe to comments via RSS

  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Tuesday, 1 April 2008 at 01.45
    Permalink

    Rectal what . . ? Wait, I'm not sure I want to know.

Subscribe to comments via RSS

Leave a Reply

To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.

I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.