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The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: deep throat, Las Vegas, New York, Gail Palmer (more...)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

NPR host Sagal (Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me) offers a hilarious, harmlessly prurient look at the banality of regular people's strange and wicked pleasures. In the wake of the late-1990s obsession with other people's fun, notes Sagal, the hoi polloi have pursued their own indulgences, such as sex joints, swinging couples' clubs, gambling and pornography. He describes the three necessary elements of vice that distinguish it from sin and give it that irresistible frisson: social disapprobation, actual pleasure and shame. A buttoned-up journalist and family man, Sagal visits the respective dens of inequity, interviewing the principals in the name of research while preserving his academic irony, e.g., during the shooting of a hardcore porn sequence for Spice TV, he remarks of the actors: I began to appreciate how very well Evan and Kelly did their work. Indeed, the dedicated hedonists, such as the regular joe habitués of San Francisco's Power Exchange or the normal-seeming couples who frequent the Swinger's Shack, face the same problems of meeting supplies, logistics, expense versus income, and time management as does any warehouse foreman. Sagal is a terrific, lively writer, and while some of his segments are repetitive and stretched, he is admirable in humanizing the participants. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Somewhere, somebody is having more fun than you are.

Orso everyone believes. Peter Sagal, a mild-mannered, Harvard-educated radio host—the man who puts the second "l" in "vanilla"—decided to find out if it's true. From strip clubs to gambling halls to swingers clubs to porn sets and back to the strip clubs (but only because he left his glasses there), Sagal explores what the sinful folk do, how much they pay for the privilege, and how exactly they got those funny red marks.

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Product Details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: It Books; Reprint edition (October 7, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060843837
ISBN-13: 978-0060843830
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,727 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#72 in Books > Entertainment > Humor > Love, Sex & Marriage
#89 in Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Ethics & Morality

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
deep throat

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Las Vegas, New York, Gail Palmer, Spice Live, Gorgeous George, Wings of Justice, Caf� Flesh, Nina Hartley, Evan Stone, Steve Wynn, Kelly Kline, Anthony Curtis, John Kerry, Hot Summer, Mel Gibson, Olympic Gardens, Spice Hotel, Los Angeles, Bert Padell, Jenna Jameson, Atlantic City, Bill Bennett, New Orleans, Miss Lewinsky, Chef Achatz

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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Customer Reviews

27 Reviews

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

Average Customer Review

3.8 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More about virture than vices, October 20, 2007

By	Michael P. Maslanka (dallas, texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) (Hardcover)

While this is nominally a book about vices, it is really a book about virtues, and it is an effective one: there are no lectures, no finger wagging a la Bill Bennett, no holier than thou passages. The chapter on lying savages those who bald face lie, taking apart Holocost deniers and Kerry defamers and both presidents Clinton and Bush. The one on consumption is a thoughtful review of evolutionary biology (we are wired to display the fruits of our wealth; it helps with a female finding a mate that will ensure the genes get passed on; who knew:waste is sexy) and how this wiring--- once useful --- now makes us do nutty stuff , like paying millions for celeb musicians to play at sweet sixteen parties. The chapter on swinging reminds us---as with many of the vices---that, as Shaw remarked, there are two great tragadies---one not to get your hearts desire , the other to get it. Sagal reminds us, in the end, not to get too worked up over what we think we don't have that others do, to be grateful for the small things, and to understand that a life without tempting vices is a life well worth living

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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great vicarious romp that leaves you glad to be virtuous, October 16, 2007

By	Holden Caulfield "Holden Caulfield" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) (Hardcover)

While the subtitle is a bit misleading (it really should be "Very Naughty Things (and why you shouldn't REALLY want to do them after all)", this book is enormously fun, especially - but not only - for those already familiar with Sagal's sarcastic wit and extraordinary verbal dexterity. He's sort of a perverse, Ivy League version of Milo leading us through the Phantom Tollbooth to the Lands Beyond Expectations. You couldn't ask for a better guide, especially since he lets you feel like it's really okay to be missing out on the swingers clubs, strip joints, casinos, etc.

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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As fun as its title suggests, October 25, 2007

By	Debra Hamel (TwitterLit.com) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) (Hardcover)

Peter Sagal is the whip-smart host of NPR's news quiz show Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fans of the program will be delighted to learn that Sagal is also now the author of a deliciously titled (and even more deliciously subtitled) exploration of iniquity: The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (And How to Do Them). The book is as fun as its title suggests.

Sagal discusses a different vice in each of the book's seven chapters--though sex looms as the dominant theme of three of them--dropping keen observations while describing his research into the subject at hand. For his first chapter, for example, on swinging, Sagal and his wife Beth observed the goings-on at a weekly swinger's party. He describes the logistics of the operation--the uses to which the various rooms of the place were put--while trying to understand the nature of the Lifestyle: becoming emotionally attached to the people you have sex with is not the done thing, for example, yet people who are in it only for the sex are apparently frowned on as well. In the end Sagal finds that he is not cut out for swinging himself:

"We are told, via their occasional interviews in the press, that swingers or Lifestylers or whatever are no different from you and me...they meet up to socialize, talk, drink, and dance with their good friends, old and new. And then they have sex with them. Which makes me stop, and consider the various good friends my wife and I have, and then consider how it would be if one of our suburban dinner parties ended with us removing our clothes and performing sexual acts, and I have to put my head between my knees and take deep breaths."

Elsewhere in the book Sagal writes about strip clubs and pornography. For the latter chapter he visits the set of a live, call-in sex show. (The stars of the show perform whatever acts their caller prescribes while a roomful of camera operators and lighting guys and directors watch, rather bored, from behind a thick glass partition.) Rounding out the book are chapters on gambling, eating, conspicuous consumption, and lying.

Sagal is a charming and funny guide through these particular avenues of sin. Maybe if you've done the things he describes--the $500-a-pull slot machines and 24-course dinners (that leave you hungry for Jack-in-the-Box), lap-dancing and lying and live broadcast sex--you'll find the book humdrum. For the rest of us armchair sinners it's pure pleasure.

-- Debra Hamel

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Naughty Book from a Very Funny Man
Peter Sagal must have the best job in the world: host of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and the ability to indulge himself in all kinds of activities -- for research, mind you... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Micheline Maynard

3.0 out of 5 stars Witty but not consitently well done
Peter Sagal is, of course, a very smart and witty talker and he writes as well as he speaks. The book begins rather well - funny and clever - but then degenerates into what... Read more

Published 7 months ago by K. Putnam

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read!
Such an interesting, easy read. Good and fun. One of the better books I've read on random social study information.

Published 8 months ago by C. Tarles

5.0 out of 5 stars Clever, witty and likely to cause you to stay up all night reading.
Peter Sagal is among the most entertaining personalities on radio today. His book will not disappoint. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Kiran Shyama

5.0 out of 5 stars Forbidden fruit, entertainingly debunked.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Sagal very wittily punctures a lot of fantasies that some may entertain about forbidden fruit, in all its various guises. Read more

Published 10 months ago by English Teacher

1.0 out of 5 stars Seamy - Just Like The Title Suggests
I thought this might be a fun read but it turns out that it's just the author trying to be flip and compassionate at the same time. It doesn't work. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Ken Montville

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended
Peter Sagal is an author with a witty and thoughtful voice. The Book of Vice goggles at the "mysterious" fringe lifestyles yet allows each subject matter to be relatable to those... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Diamondsky

5.0 out of 5 stars Relieved to know I'm not the only one who found some vices kinda boring
Over the years I've dipped my toe in some of the vices Peter explores in his book and came away with the same vague emptiness that he describes. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Jan in NC

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious
Peter Sagal amuses himself more than he does the reader. The subjects are interesting, however his content and snarky comments are not. This is not the humor of Wait Wait... Read more

Published 14 months ago by L. Heitzman

4.0 out of 5 stars The wit of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
Peter Sagal's first book is a humorous examination of the most common of American vices. The incongruity of this self-proclaimed square and the strip clubs, swinger parties, etc... Read more

Published 14 months ago by iubookgirl

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