Guest Post on Bonk by Mary Roach from Minneapolis' Books & Bars

This month's guest post from Jeff Kamin of Minneapolis' Books & Bars book club once again includes video. Read on for their discussion of Bonk by Mary Roach. And if you missed it, be sure to check out last month's post on Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.

118 people were in attendance as Books & Bars convered Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex on 6/9. With twenty people over fire code capacity we had our largest crowd (sneaking in) according to the Bryant-Lake Bowl servers.

In discussing the book, I allowed (encouraged) double entrendres and sexual innuendos but warned you could get a shouted "BONK!" from the audience if you used one in your comments. It was a lot of fun with a seemingly still taboo topic for some people. A majority of the converstaion was devoted to masturbation, perhaps not surprisingly, in our group of mostly singles.

Overall we enjoyed Bonk, though we felt it a little unfocused and slight on some of its topics. It may be hard to believe but we were ready for a more in-depth and serious take on the subject matters of sexuality and science. We usually do only one non-fiction book a year in our club. Non-fiction serves as a jumping off point for discussions, which end up being less about the book/author and more about the topics presented. Not always a bad thing, in fact they're usually heated and informative debates, but after an informal poll we'll continue reading mainly fiction.

Take a few minutes to see the video for the funny payoffs toward the end.

Next month we discuss Atmostpheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen.

Thanks for reading,
Jeff Kamin, moderator/director/writer
www.mustacherobots.wordpress.com
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Comments

[Lauren]

I love these book club meetings because they sound so fun!

[Jeff Kamin]

Thanks. At the very least I promise fun even if you don't like the book. You should visit us sometime. Or follow along vicariously on our forum , Twitter or Facebook. We have some long distance readers.