Then and now

T.C. Boyle's The Inner Circle does a fine job evoking what appears as a very distant world. Sex research, as pioneered by Alfred Kinsey in pre-WW II America, could easily provoke an uproar (and worse) and its practitioners had to be extra careful to project scientific gravitas.

Times have changed and this is what makes Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex such a delight. It is now 2008 and the author gets to have all the fun. And Roach is very skillfull in not passing up any opportunity to exploit the humor. Read all of her footnotes.