The Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love

When Fine Investigation Reads Like Pulp Fiction!

Thomas Maier has successfully brought to life the lives of two of the more important figures in the history of scientific investigation of human sexual behavior in a manner that would doubtless have made the subjects of this biography giggle in retrospect. MASTERS OF SEX is a well written, solidly researched ('based on interviews, Masters' unpublished memoir, and clinic documents') near exposé of the fascinating lives of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, two creative thinkers who disrupted their private lives to engage the country in a mass retrieval of sexual behavior, characteristics, follies, fantasies and abuses that lead to their magnum opus HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE.

By detailing the investigating techniques and the manner in which the couple drew throngs of eager workers to carry out their detailed questionnaires distributed throughout the country makes for reading that is peppered with borderline taste and daring and makes a book about 'scientific investigation' as fun to read as a plain wrapper novel! But the end result in reading this lengthy book is best tied to the subtitle of Maier's choice - 'The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love'. For all the dalliances Maier takes in uncovering the skills of his workers and the rather rocky life patterns of the subjects of this biography, he still convinces the reader that the work by these two strange but important people truly altered the way we have grown into examining sexuality today. Without their work we may have still been in the Victorian era! Well written and always entertaining, this is a book from which we learn, and a book we enjoy as a bit of a racy novel.

Grady Harp

Interesting Topic - Not well executed.

This was a very frustrating book because I came away with the feeling that there was a deeper, even more interesting, story to be told about the motivations of the various individuals. I was never sure whether this was conjecture on my part or was being hinted at by the author. On the other hand, I did come away wanting to understand their work, as it is seen today, more fully

Incredibly Bad Narration

Listening to this audio book is pure torture. The narrator does not understand that reading out loud requires putting emphasis on the correct words. She constantly puts little pauses in the middle of sentences which disrupt the flow and confuse the meaning of what she is reading. Her sing-song approach becomes maddening after a brief time and is agonizing for extended periods. It is as if she begins reading each sentence with no idea of how the sentence will end. She also has frustrating verbal tics such as putting the emphasis on the first syllable in any word beginning with "un". She swallows words and has trouble with pronunciation. (Spokane, Washington is "spo-can" not "spo-cane.") I simply cannot believe that the publisher had anyone listen to this narration before releasing the book.

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