Author Archives: Goddess in the Stacks

Book Review: Bonk

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bonkBonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
by Mary Roach
Microhistory
319 pages
Published 2008

It’s not often a nonfiction book has me laughing out loud, but this one did it. This is the first of Roach’s books I’ve read, but her voice makes me want to read everything she’s ever written! Bonk is the story of sexual research – how scientists have made discoveries about a topic that is awkward at best, and taboo or even criminal at worst. Roach takes research seriously, volunteering as a research subject more than once (and convincing her husband to help, in at least one case!) Her wordplay is clever and her footnotes are HILARIOUS – this was a nonfiction book I kept having to pause and read to my husband between snickers.

Even her chapter titles are giggle-inducing – with titles like “The Princess and Her Pea – The Woman Who Moved Her Clitoris, and Other Ruminations on Intercourse Orgasms” and “Re-member Me – Transplants, Implants, and Other Penises Of Last Resort.”

Roach writes about some truly awkward sexual encounters in the name of science:

On the bed are a man and a woman. They are making the familiar movements made by millions of other couples on a bed that night, yet they look nothing like those couples. They have EKG wires leading from their thighs and arms, like a pair of lustful marionettes who managed to escape the puppet show and check into a cheap motel. Their mouths are covered by snorkel-type mouthpieces with valves. Trailing from each mouthpiece is a length of flexible tubing that runs through the wall to the room next door, where Bartlett is measuring their breathing rate. To ensure that they don’t breathe through their noses, the noses have been “lightly clamped.”

Another passage mentions two gymnasts who have sex in an MRI tube. (For science!) I’m impressed these people can perform under these conditions at all!

There’s only one passage that squicked me out a little bit – there’s a few paragraphs describing a urologist performing surgery on a penis and it’s…a little disturbing. That aside, though, this is a delightful book on an uncommon topic. It’s an easy read, which I don’t say about much nonfiction. It might be awkward to explain why you’re snickering over this book, though!

This is also my pick for the PopSugar prompt “Microhistory.”

From the cover of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and 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 manner, 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.

Friday 56 – Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

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bonkThe Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from the hilarious book Bonk by Mary Roach. I’ve had to stop and read passages to my husband to explain why I’m snickering so much! In this passage, our intrepid author is at a sex-machine display and lecture.

Archibald winds up his talk and invites questions. A woman in wire-rimmed glasses and a green T-shirt raises her hand. “What we’re seeing is a lot of dildos going in and out of orifices. Given that the majority of women don’t orgasm this way, do any of these machines pay attention to the clitoris?”

Book Review: My Life with Bob

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my life with bobMy Life with Bob – Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
by Pamela Paul
Memoir
240 pages
Published 2017

I need to read more books about books, because the few that I’ve read, I’ve really enjoyed! Earlier this year I read Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, and loved it. I have holds on Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books and The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe. (I also have a hold on The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, but I’m not sure that quite counts.) And, in looking up the links for those books, I just put holds on three more books about reading, since this is a genre I apparently enjoy!

My Life with Bob is about the author’s reading life. Bob is a notebook she uses to keep track of what she’s read. Just title and author, and whether or not she’s finished it. Very simple. But in looking back through what she’s read, she recalls where she was, and what she was doing or going through at the time. So the real story is how her reading choices fit into her life, and how being a bookworm affected her life.

I enjoyed the book, with the slight irritation (in the latter part of the book) of her insistence on calling Young Adult literature, Children’s Lit. Children’s books are picture books and books for young readers, not The Fault in Our Stars and The Hunger Games. Those are Young Adult, and there’s a pretty big difference in my opinion. Maybe not in the professional world; she is the editor of The New York Times Book Review. But it’s frustrating to hear her talk about Kid Lit and lump Harry Potter in with a 36-page autobiography of a teddy bear written for kids under 10.

I was also a little shocked to learn (in the book!) she wrote a book about how porn is destroying the American family, and testified before Congress about it, sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch and Sam Brownback. I normally don’t have a problem reading Republican authors – I often don’t know the exact political leanings of authors – but I’m reading about her reading choices, and suddenly they are all suspect. (She disliked Ayn Rand, at least, so that’s something.) The book was published in May of last year, so after the last presidential election. Anyone who acknowledges working with the GOP at this point, and isn’t embarrassed by it, immediately gets a black mark in my book.

So ultimately I’m torn on this book. I liked reading it. I dislike the author. (I will never even try to be non-political on this blog. Sorry-not-sorry.)

From the cover of My Life with Bob:

Imagine keeping a record of every book you’ve ever read. What would this reading trajectory say about you? With passion, humor, and insight, the editor of The New York Times Book Review shares how stories have shaped her life.

Pamela Paul has kept a single  book by her side for twenty-eight years – carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand and from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully moved from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk. It is reliable if frayed, anonymous looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob.

Bob is Paul’s Book of Books, a journal that records every book she’s ever read, from Sweet Valley High to Anna Karenina, from Catch-22 to Swimming to Cambodia. It recounts a journey in reading that reflects her inner life – her fantasies and hopes, her mistakes and missteps, her dreams and her ideas, both half-baked and wholehearted. Her life, in turn, influences the books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, information or sheer entertainment. 

But My Life with Bob isn’t really about those books. It’s about the deep and powerful relationship between book and reader. It’s about the way books provide each of us the perspective, courage, companionship, and imperfect self-knowledge to forge our own path. It’s about why we read what we read and how those choices make us who we are. It’s about how we make our own stories.

Library Loot Wednesday

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I am buckling down and concentrating on reading a book every day this week; I HAVE to knock out some of these library books!

I checked out four books this week:

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, which I need to read ASAP as I’m sure I won’t be able to renew it, with the popularity of the movie adaptation on Netflix.

A Whole New World, which is the first in a set of Disney stories, twisted. In this case, what if Jafar found the genie first?

Revolution For Dummies, written by Egypt’s version of Jon Stewart.

And Autonomous, about a “pharmaceutical pirate” who brings cheap drugs to the poor in a future earth with robots.

Top Ten Tuesday – Hidden Gems

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s topic is Hidden Gems – books we think didn’t get enough publicity or aren’t as well known as they should be. Since I read whatever catches my interest, I’m not always reading the latest and greatest. Sometimes I’m learning more about a topic, or reading an old classic that someone recommended to me, or reading a book to fit a challenge topic. So I feel like I’ve come across a fair number of books that I thought were excellent but hadn’t really seen talked about – some of them probably because they’re older.

Little Bee, for example, came out in 2010, but is still an excellent example of a refugee’s experience. Her experiences in London might not be typical, but her reasons for wanting to escape her home country? Heart breaking.

Period came out this year, but is a wonderful, diverse collection of essays on menstruation or the lack thereof.

Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything remains one of my favorite books. It came out in 2004 and was a bestseller then, but it seems like not too many people know about it now. It’s a gorgeous, fascinating book on the history of science, discoveries, and the planet.

invisibleInvisible is a nonfiction book on invisible illnesses and how they affect young women. It gets into the social and physical aspects of it as well as how it affects work and relationships and mental health. The book also talks about doctors’ reluctance to LISTEN to women, which other books have gone into more detail about. The topic is near and dear to my heart, as I have at least two autoimmune diseases (and possibly a third) that dictate a lot of what I can do day-to-day.

tolstoy purple chairTolstoy and the Purple Chair is a book I read for the PopSugar prompt “book with your favorite color in the title” and I am so glad I did! The author made a decision to read a book every day for a year to heal from losing her sister to cancer. She talks about what she read and how it affected her life. It’s a lovely, sweet book that appeals to my desire to escape into books when life is hard.

cinnamon and gunpowderCinnamon & Gunpowder is a book I just read, about a chef kidnapped by a pirate. It’s a bit of a twist on the pirate adventure story, and I really enjoyed it. My full review will be up on Monday!

drowning deepI don’t remember hearing much publicity for Into the Drowning Deep – it’s a very Cthulu-esque mermaid story. I had read the novella that precedes it – Rolling in the Deep – some time ago and was very excited to see a sequel. It’s by Mira Grant, which is a pen name for Seanan McGuire. (She’s a riot to follow on Twitter, by the way!)

Next up are two graphic novels – As The Crow Flies, which is a collection of a webcomic. It’s gorgeous and a wonderful story about a queer black girl at summer camp trying to fit in, but it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and I’ve heard nothing about a sequel despite much Googling. All’s Faire in Middle School is the second graphic novel; I just picked it up from the Maryland Renaissance Festival at Page after Page, our book shop. It’s fantastic and really gets the atmosphere of a Ren Faire onto the page.

The last book I’m not sure qualifies as a Hidden Gem or not (it just came out), but I haven’t heard much buzz about it, and I really loved it. The Book of M is a dystopia about losing memories, and it’s an interesting look into what makes a person themselves. the book of m

Book Review: The Girl Who Drank the Moon

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girl who drank the moonThe Girl Who Drank the Moon
by Kelly Barnhill
YA Fantasy
388 pages
Published 2016

I adore this cover. It was what first caught my eye when people started talking about this book, and then to find out it was a fairytale about a girl, a witch, and a dragon? I was sold. The trouble was getting my hands on it! But it has finally worked its way through the long line of other people who wanted to read it at my library, and I got to check it out. I’ve labeled it YA Fantasy, but it’s actually pretty close to middle-grade Fantasy. Definitely something younger readers could understand, but enough meat in it for older readers who like fairy tales to enjoy it as well.

I would argue that the main character is not, in fact, the titular one, but the forest witch, Xan. Xan has been rescuing the babies left outside the Protectorate for many, many years, thinking the parents were abandoning them willfully, not that they were bullied into “sacrificing” wanted children. She’d cluck, take the babies, and deliver them to towns on the other side of the forest, where the villagers knew and loved her and cherished the children, calling them blessed and Star-Children. Meanwhile, the people of the Protectorate lived their days under a gray haze of misery, ruled by a Council who cared only for themselves and used Xan and the forest as a scare tactic.

Into this world Luna is born, and her mother refuses to give her up to be sacrificed, and goes “mad” when she is forced to. She is imprisoned in a tower, watched by fearsome nuns, while the oblivious Xan spirits her daughter away. On the journey, Xan winds up wandering instead of going straight to a village, and accidentally feeds Luna moonlight instead of starlight. Realizing the girl would be too much for a normal family to raise, she takes her home. (She also can’t bear the thought of giving this particular child up.) She raises Luna as a granddaughter.

But Luna’s mother wants her back, and some of the people of the Protectorate have started to wise up to the Council’s games, and the plot really begins.

I really enjoyed this book – the characters were fun, the emotional conflicts were realistic, and the world-building was cute. This would actually be an excellent book to read to a child as a bedtime story, one chapter a night. (My parents read to us that way, working through Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Chronicles of Narnia, Tolkien, and Anne of Green Gables.) Adorable book, gorgeous cover. Slightly simplistic, but it strikes a perfect balance between a middle-grade read and something adults will still enjoy.

From the cover of The Girl Who Drank the Moon:

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the Forest, Xan, is kind. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon. Xan rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna’s thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to emerge – with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Deadly birds with uncertain intentions flock nearby. A volcano, quiet for centuries, rumbles just beneath the earth’s surface. And the woman with the Tiger’s heart is on the prowl . . .

The author of the highly acclaimed, award-winning novel The Witch’s Boy has written an epic coming-of-age fairy tale destined to be a modern classic.