Following her success with Stiff and Spook, Mary Roach triumphantly continues with Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. Far and away funnier than I anticipated, this titillating foray into sexual research, diagnosis and treatment is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. It is a rare book indeed that can convey scholarly and incredibly thorough research in a hip and hilarious manner that is both factual and fascinating.

In one of my favorite passages in the book, as part of her initiation into this research, she and her hoodwinked husband travel to London to take place in coital imaging (i.e. having an x-ray taken while in the act). Pre-scan, the technician hands her husband an erotic magazine and the author quips “The implication being, I suppose, that the sight of one’s wife in a baggy knee-length hospital johnny and threadbare socks is not [erotic].”

The most horrifying of the passages generally deal with the historical accounts of what was once accepted medicine, which can have the unnerving affect of having your naughty bits cringe. Anecdotal and conversational, this book is for anyone, from scientists to nymphos and all us regular folk in between.