Product Description
On DEATH . . . What is shared by spawning Pacific salmon, towering trees, and suicidal bacteria? In his lucid and concise exploration of how and why things die, Tyler Volk explains the intriguing ways creatures-in… More >>
Product Description
On DEATH . . . What is shared by spawning Pacific salmon, towering trees, and suicidal bacteria? In his lucid and concise exploration of how and why things die, Tyler Volk explains the intriguing ways creatures-in… More >>
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
So here we have “Death and Sex”, a two-fer book that gives you one book on death and the other on sex. Both are rather boring, dull and uninteresting, which is surprising given the topics.
“Sex”, for example. One would expect this to be a great firestorm of a book collecting all sorts of interesting thoughts and musings on the topic from all levels. Instead you get a rather clinical set of essays about sex and a rather more interesting one about the Marquis de Sade. At no point does this book reach its full potential.
“Death” is worse still. It’s even more dull and uninteresting without a single memorable essay or terribly original thought. I did like the dedication at the front, however.
Really what I’d like to see more of, and that neither book touched on, is the connection that exists between death and sex within our culture. That could’ve been much more compelling. Instead we have this, where ne’er the twain shall meet.
Ultimately there’s nothing really going on with these books, and that’s a great disappointment.
Rating: 2 / 5
I happen to be a book buyer by profession. It is a rare instance when I open up a package of fresh publisher samples that a book brings my day to a halt due to it’s beauty, let alone its subject. Death and Sex is such a book. It’s look and texture are as tempting and forbidding as it’s topics. This is a book one feels compelled to rub. It begs to be given a design award. Now, to read it…
Rating: 4 / 5
This is really two completely separate books printing together in one volume. One cover of the book has the title “sex” and the other has the title “death”, and they’re printed upside down relative to each other so that each time you turn the book over you’re looking at the front cover of either “sex” or “death”. Because they have different topics, authors, and styles, I’m going to give each a separate review as well.
Death – Tyler Volk – 4 stars
Volk is a biology professor at NYU and knows his stuff cold. In this book he starts by talking about the small things and works his way up. The beginning of the book discusses how the natural works deals with death by recycling, then moves on to show how organisms, both small and large, do the same thing with cell death. He eventually moves on to show how humans react to death. There is a review of archeological discoveries of ancient proto-human death rituals, and then he finally moves on to some fascinating modern psychological research which shows how the knowledge of our own mortality affects us as individuals. (In short, being reminded of our mortality tends to make us cling more strongly to our worldview).
Sex – Dorian Sagan – 2 stars
This is clearly the more provocatively titled of the two halves of this work, but it is by far the more disappointing one. While sex and evolutionary theory could make for some fascinating reading, (and other authors have done so), Sagan presents a few bogus theories like the “aquatic ape” theory. While there are some scientific treatments of Bonobo monkeys, they are extremely basic and should be familiar to any high school biology student. Almost every chapter has a long discussion on a French philosopher, and at least one of them reads like a college term paper on the Marquis De Sade’s views on morality and sex. In fact, I learned far more about French theoreticians than I did about sex or science. It came as no surprise to me, after read this book, to find that on the “about the author” page Sagan has no scientific background. His only claim to scientific background is through his lineage.
Rating: 3 / 5
Death & Sex is a strange collection of two books in one. The themes of the books stand in strange contrast to each other. Although the topics are a little too adult for my household, I can see how leaving Death & Sex on your coffee table could provide an ice-breaker for some interesting conversations, etc. Both books provide insightful discussions on taboo topics. While each of the books seem a little overdone to me, they were both interesting to read and weren’t so long that I regretted reading them (about 100 pages each).
I guess their packaging worked on me. I picked up Death & Sex because the combination looked interesting.
Rating: 4 / 5
Sex and Death… a much more interesting pairing than death and taxes… but, though this book is nicely designed and well presented physically, it is only marginally more interesting than if it were about taxes.
Death and Sex is two slim books in one: “Death” by Tyler Volk and “Sex” by Dorion Sagan. Though they each mention the other topic in passing, the two subjects remain mostly segregated from each other and that is one of the faults of this book – its design forces it into two separate topics while its title entices you into thinking it will be an interesting look at the two.
Each book is well written and it is obvious that the authors know their subjects, but after a while I found them to be a bit long in the tooth and dry and I had to labor to finish them even though each had me very intrigued in the beginning. I’ll spare you the intimate details as plenty of other reviewers here have done so and just sum them up by saying that this book would be well placed by the bed where it can be read in small chunks as you slide into sleep (you won’t have to blame the book then).
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A Guide to my Book Rating System:
1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don’t bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn’t a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.
Rating: 3 / 5