The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) by Peter Sagal

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

• 
  Maya

  I love "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me," so I thought I'd really love this book. And I'll say this for it; Peter Sagal has such a strong narrative style that I could practically hear him reading it aloud.
  
  Some sections were better than others, but I expected something a little different, I guess. In many cases Sagal takes one sample case and runs with it, rather than comparing several. In the section on swingers, for example, all his subjects come from one "club" or society, so what you get deal more with his observations than any concerted effort at real understanding of what motivates these people to participate in this behavior. It's not that I wanted something more salacious, but I did want a few more viewpoints.
  
  Entertaining, but I feel he missed a chance to do more; there's a little too much "of course you and I are far too square to really be interested in this" and not enough "why exactly is it that people would want to do that?"
• 
  Joanna

  This was mildly funny at times, but I was surprised to find Sagal so judgmental of "vices" that are not, to my twentieth-century liberal understanding, either unusual or particularly problematic. He tries to downplay the judgment by claiming he is simply too "vanilla" for the pornographic, polyamorous, or gourmand-y activities that form the subject of his text, but I felt there was a distinct tone of disapproval throughout, a fastidious sense of separation--only people who "aren't like us" commit these vices. I would have said I fit into Sagal's definition of "us," but now I'm not so sure. In fact, for the first time in my far-left life, I can actually understand why people stereotype liberals as snooty and uptight. Not cool, Mr. Sagal.
  
  I recommend Dan Savage's Skipping Towards Gomorrah as a much more entertaining and a much less tsk-tsk-ing alternative--the premise is the same, but the attitude is sincerely inquisitive, rather than an excuse to make fun of people who Sagal feels are too stupid to avoid "naughty" behaviors.
• 
  Kara

  Not nearly as naughty as the title suggests, The Book of Vice appeals to the voyeur in all of us, at least those of us who know nothing about $700 24-course meals, swingers' parties and the porn industry, and Peter Sagal is a fantastic and hilarious guide. Usually, I find that non-fictions like this one (read: not memoirs or collections of essays) tend to lag a bit at the end, but that certainly wasn't the case with this one.
  
  What really surprised me was how much I liked the chapter about lying. It didn't have the insider interviews that the other chapters had (perhaps because nobody wants to admit that he or she is THAT much of a liar), but it was lots of fun nonetheless. I particularly liked the part where Sagal creates a formula for lying, and illustrates it by trying to convince the reader that there is no Massachusetts. (Hey, no Massachusetts, no Mitt Romney, no problem!)
  
  Good stuff though. I may not recommend it to my parents or my little sister, but I'd recommend it to almost anyone else. It's well worth it.
• 
  Susan Union

  With most non-fiction books, I read the first couple of chapters, the table of contents, and the last chapter and I'm satisfied. I usually find the middle superfluous.
  Not so with The Book of Vice.
  Sagal says, "everybody is a tourist outside the bounds of his own life," and aims to find out why people cross the lines that society has drawn for us.
  He touches on swingers, eating (Sodom's restaurant), strip clubs, lying, gambling, consumption (keeping up with the Joneses), and pornography. He interviews the 'players' and personally visits strip clubs, porn sets, and a swingers party, all with a 'vanilla' eye and a Dave Barry-like sense of humor.
  This book is an interesting and informative read, and no chapter skipping necessary.
• 
  Joel

  A potentially juicy subject was rendered nearly dull by one of those self-satisfied NPR commentators (Sagal).
  
  Admittedly the topic drew me in and kept me reading, but the writing reeked of smirkiness and failed attempts at cleverness. The result was a choppy read without a whole lot of depth. Seemingly, the author threw himself a big, fat softball and could only manage a foul tip.
  
  Or maybe, just maybe, vice really isn't that interesting
  nor worth delving into. In that case, Sagal, in a roundabout way, made his point.
  
  
  
• 
  Ciara

  so, peter sagal did a talk up on campus about the role of satire in political discourse. jared & i are good lefty retired anarchists who listen to a fair amount of NPR, including "wait wait, don't tell me" every weekend (my favorite panelist is paula poundstone). peter sagal hosts "wait wait, don't tell me," so we decided to make a date of it & go see what he had to say. we brought ramona, of course, because who the hell has the money for a babysitter? plus it's easy to take tiny babies to things because they usually just sleep. they are easily over-stimulated & their response to that stimulation is to close their eyes & pass out.
  
  i wore ramona in the moby wrap. i made sure she was freshly diapered & fed & sure, enough, she snoozed contentedly. until five minutes before the event started. that's when she suddenly woke up & decided that all she wanted in life was to get out of the wrap & have a good look around this strange new environment she was in (some kind of ballroom thing in the student union at KU). i was thinking, "oh no, i'm going to be that person who has a screaming baby at the cultural event, & with all these childless undergrads, no one is going to understand, no matter how fast i hustle her out the door when she starts wailing." i gritted my teeth & took a seat all the way in the back, close to the door.
  
  to our surprise, ramona was happy & awake through the entire event. she likes it when people laugh, & peter sagal is pretty funny, so she smiled during all the punch lines. it was like she knew what was going on (even though she didn't).
  
  we thought it would be funny to have peter sagal sign his book to her. but we hadn't read it yet...when we got to the front of the line, he signed it: "ramona--you can't read this for 18 years." he also remarked on how she is very cute & tiny & has a great name. i took a photo of him posing with jared & ramona, but i used my new cell phone to take it & i guess you have to explicitly save photos or they are deleted automatically. & i didn't realize that & accidentally deleted the photo.
  
  anyway, i started reading the book that night while i was up with ramona &...wow. i kind of regret having it signed to a tiny baby. i think allowing her to read the book in 18 years is probably a stretch. maybe 35 years would be more appropriate. or never! never could work. i mean, it was funny--kind of a cross between david sedaris & mary roach in that respect. but yikes! it's all strippers, swinger's clubs, gambling addicts, & gluttony. i guess i can't say i wasn't warned. it is called "the book of vice". i guess i just wasn't totally prepared for how vic-y it really was. but if you can deal with the idea that the host of an NPR quiz show knows what a "cream pie" is, you might like this book. (more of a four stars for me, but i was too embarrassed to say that i "really liked" a book with so much sleaze in it.)
• 
  Rose

  In The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (And How To Do Them), Peter Sagal, host of NPR's weekly news quiz Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, sets out to explore, through first-hand experience, how and why humans indulge in various vices. Each chapter, save the introduction & conclusion, is devoted to a particular vice, including swinging, eating, strip clubs, lying, gambling, consumption, and pornography. Sagal lightly researches and then experiments on his own with each vice. Each chapter, then, gives a bit of overview and history of the topic, contains summary from an expert or two with whom Sagal consulted, and then recounts with wit and humor Sagal's real life foray into the topic. For example, in the chapter on swinging, Sagal and his (oh-so-tolerant and patient) wife, Beth, attend a large, private swingers' party. They informally interview the participants while posing as a couple who is intrigued by and considering joining the lifestyle. Sagal then reflects on the couples they meet, those same couples' unique philosophies about their lifestyle, and the reasons for why swinging can be an intriguing and/or tempting vice.
  
  Fans of Sagal's radio work will recognize his distinctive style and humor. My friend Sarah and I both expressed that we can "hear" his voice while reading his written work. But although the book is funny at times, it isn't the funniest or most intriguing book I've read about these topics. Specifically, the chapters about eating, lying, and consumption (the latter from which I cannot recall a single ancedote) are neither memorable nor particularly amusing. Along with retellings of his experiences, Sagal weaves in research about the topics, paying particular attention to historical oddities and fun facts. While not the focus of the book (as Sarah notes, Sagal is first and foremost a humorist), Sagal's attempts at research are watered down. Wait Wait is so consistently funny that I had high expectations for The Book of Vice. The end result is a book that is moderately funny and insightful, but not particularly so. A nice effort, a quick and pleasant read, but ultimately not a book for the ages.
• 
  doreen

  I had read this book after reading America Unzipped by Brian Alexander, and I enjoyed the writing and topics in The Book of Vice much better. The two books are different, but Vice touches upon some similar topics that Alexander's book covers: strip clubs and pornography.
  
  However, Peter Sagal's situations seem a bit more interesting for me. Much of that has to deal with his sense of humour, but also with the presence of his wife in some of the experiences. Also, the vices focused on in the book are more than just sexual, as chapters titled "Gambling," "Consumption," "Lying" and "Eating" show. "Eating" was my favourite chapter, as it focused on molecular gastronomy, and the multi-multi-course meal experience Sagal and his wife had was immensely amusing, especially the epiphany they both share during their lamb dish.
  
  The book was a quick and enjoyable read, and it's good to know what I, as a mere prole, am missing at the Swinger's Shack, the porn sets and casinos: not enough to make me particularly envious. Although I'd love to try some of the dishes Sagal and his wife had at Grant Achatz's restaurant....
• 
  Bronwen

  Tag along with Peter Sagal as he tours the underground worlds of various vices, from swingers clubs to high-stakes casinos to strip clubs. I enjoyed Sagal's observations and humor, as well as the glimpse into the darker side of life.
  
  What does it say about me, though, that everything I know about stripping, swinging and porn I've learned from a Harvard-educated NPR host who, by his own admission, "put the second L in vanilla?"
• 
  Terri

  I expect better from Peter Sagal. The underlying conclusion of this book is that vices are only titillating as long as they remain exotic...if we look at them too closely in the light of day they all seem a little sad. Well...duh. If we're just going to use commonsense, then it's not a very interesting read.
• 
  Kaara

  I am a huge and longstanding fan of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and for a long time was convinced that, if only I could find a way to ask him, Peter Sagal would surely set me up with some friend of his that was as funny, smart, and geekily gangly as he was and who would then turn out to be the love of my life (convoluted Public-Radio-Geek story...stay with me here...). So you can imagine how Iwas anticipating in this book a pithy, insightful, impossibly clever take on the most fundamental and fascinating dark sides of human nature. Well, it was pithy and fairly clever, but I must confess I was a little disappointed.
  
  One thing I love about Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is how well it flows, how much it just carries you along from banter to banter. Well, I've been to several live shows, and, while they're really enjoyable and very funny and there's not THAT much editing done on them by any means, they really aren't as zippy and hilarious as the Saturday morning show on WBEZ. That is the magic of editing--the pauses, floppy jokes, and banter-turned-blather are edited out until the content is consistent and the timing is impeccable. This book could have used some of that editing. The timing was just...a little off. A little slow. Much like the movie Walk Hard.
  
  I also didn't find the commentary terribly insightful or new. I know this is light fare, but, as the show manages to be innovative and insightful at the same time as light, I was expecting the same from this book.
  
  Gosh, I feel so guilty writing this about my favorite show's host.
  
  The last thing is, and bless his heart, I think given the subject matter and my natural prudishness Peter Sagal couldn't help this outcome, but I found his exploration of the, for example, lustful side of humans to carry a stain of sleaziness that never really washed off, even this long after I finished reading the book.
  
  So...not sure I would recommend this. By nature of the subject matter and Sagal's clever writing, though, it is a fine airplane or beach book.
• 
  Robert

  A funny, enjoyable book that may not be the best thing to read on the subway.
  
  Day 1. Chapter: "Swinging". Chuckling a bit. Eyes widening a bit. Suddenly aware that the people sitting on both sides of me are women. Book slams shut.
  
  Day 2. Chapter: "Eating". Phew: entertaining, but completely safe. Interesting look at molecular gastronomy and a very intense chef.
  
  Day 3. Reaching the end of Chapter 2, turning the last page, and the title of chapter 3 is "Strip Clubs". Did I mention that each chapter heading also has an illustration? Book slams shut.
  
  And so it goes.
  
  I'm a big fan of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me... and Sagal's occasional essays in Runner's World magazine. Sagal always comes across as a really smart, funny, nerdy friend. Reading the book made me feel like I was sitting at the dinner table with a good friend who'd recently come back from some unique experiences and had some great stories to tell.
  
  I'd rate this a "strong 3" stars. The only reason I don't give it 4 is that, while I enjoyed it while reading it (other than some embarrassment on the subway), I didn't feel pulled in enough to keep picking it up.
  
  Sagal's wife, Beth, totally rocks. Her appearances, and comments, in the book are wonderful.
  
  Recommended for people who are enjoy salacious details and intellectual analysis of the same.
  
• 
  Tung

  The Book of Vice is a nonfiction exploration of some human vices – from pornography to gluttony to gambling. Sagal (an NPR host) attempts to explain why people pursue these vices by visiting establishments of said vices, experiencing the vices (to some degree), and interviewing the people who partake of, cater to, or enable these vices. Sagal is smart and witty, and his descriptions of his experiences with these vices is often insightful, and almost always amusing in a dry wit sort of way. The book does suffer from a few issues. First, as is common in this genre of nonfiction accounts, the author assumes he/she must serve up as many smarty alecky comments as can fit into a page, which gets annoying in places (not as annoying as Mary Roach in Stiff, but similar). Second, in several of the chapters, Sagal’s insights are interesting, but unpersuasive (the chapter on gambling, for example, where he links gambling to American faith). In other chapters, there doesn’t even seem to be an exploration of the “why” behind the vice, and Sagal merely discusses his experience with it (the chapter on eating or lying, for example). But these are minor criticisms overall, and I still found it an entertaining read. My guilty pleasure read of the year. Recommended.
• 
  Ashley

  If you're not the biggest fan ever of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", the news quiz show on NPR, you may not be dying to read anything written by the host of the show, Peter Sagal. Because I nearly split my sides laughing when I'm able to listen to the show, I sought some respite - comic relief- in these pages. I found some. More interesting to me, however, was how Peter Sagal narrated these journalistic forays into vice. His investigation of 'very naughty things' is wondrously crafted - not the structure of the book or final conclusions, but his delight in finding the absurd, the ironic, the perplexing and telling us all about it, as if juicily gossiping away the details were the entire point of the book (yeah, it is). Sagal could choose to focus on the hypocritical aspect of those committing the vices (witness virtue authority William Bennett's uber-expensive gambling habit); instead, he makes all the vices he discusses, even those which may have seemed tempting at one point or another in our lives, seem absolutely ridiculous, an easy target for the observant comic. Further, Mr. Sagal tought me a few new words. Who knew he had such a vast vocabulary? Fun read.
  
  
• 
  Margot

  An anecdotal surface treatment of various vices, focusing primarily on sex-related vices. This fits with our American squeamishness about sex as opposed to violence. Sagal focuses on mainstream American mores, and when he hearkens to a historical background, it is to our Western cultural roots in the Roman empire, etc. Sagal uses a working definition of vice as something which is enjoyable, forbidden fruit, and a choice. He doesn't deal with alcohol or drugs in this book, as he sees addiction as taking out the choice factor. However, in the chapter on gambling, he doesn't delve into the world of gambling addiction. Then he might have to get into sex addiction, compulsive lying, and food addiction, which would wipe out the rest of his chapters. Overall, an enjoyable look at various vices through the eyes of the most straight-laced, square adult white heterosexual man around.
• 
  Brett

  Similar to the author's take on many of the topics covered in this book, the book itself sounds more interesting than it actually is. The topics are "investigated" in a fairly superficial manner, with much of each chapter consisting merely of the author's musings on the topic and what he thinks the participants motivations might be. I was really hoping to read more history and scholarly discussion of the topics. Instead, the author seems to mostly enjoy his own creative writing skills, as he works to craft as many metaphors as possible in each paragraph. I also found the author's tone to be somewhat condescending, as he goes out of his way to make sure the reader understands how unappealing he finds each of the vices. Right.
  
  
• 
  RandomAnthony

  Eh. Ever read a book and, when you get down to the last fifty pages or so, you'd like to read something else but you're so close to the end you feel you might as well finish? I had that experience with "The Book of Vice." Some chapters (lying, gambling) were interesting but not particularly groundbreaking, and the author's "tie it together" insights didn't do much for me. This book reminded me that writing memoir-type essays is probably harder than it looks because Sagal swung and mostly missed. Plus, well, in full disclosure, I hate his radio show. A quick read, but just because the book is a quick read doesn't mean you should take the time.
• 
  Amber

  Cute book. Peter Sagal is pretty funny- there are a few laugh-out-loud lines. Being a very conservative-seeming man (not in the political sense but in the lifestyle sense) he does not come off as too judgmental and he seems to easily admit when his preconceptions have been incorrect.
  
  It is what it is. It isn't a ground breaking study or something trying to persuade anyone to follow a line of thinking- it is a guy investigating things that he has never done. It is not meant to be objective. It is there for your and his amusement.
• 
  Dave

  How could a book about strippers, swingers, porn stars, and other libertines be so boring? Mostly because Peter Sagal (the guy who hosts NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) insists on walking a weird line between prurience and puritanism: He clearly likes titillating readers with tales of taboo-breakers, but constantly has to remind us that he has a purely academic interest in such matters and that this stuff is not his bag, no sir! Too bad he couldn't make a better case for the thrills of nonparticipant observation.
• 
  Isis

  Superficial but enjoyable, well written, an easy read, although the footnotes are generally an irritating conceit. Less interesting when Sagal is just cracking jokes, more interesting when he probes beneath the surface and actually talks to, for example, casino card-counters and porn stars. Rather self-centric: his experience at the stratospherically expensive restaurant Alinea, his experience at a strip club. My favorite part: a step-by-step guide, based on the strategies of Holocaust deniers, on how to make the case that Massachusetts does not exist.
• 
  Jon

  This book was a gift. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd own it. In "The Book of Vice" Sagal looks at a handful of activities people simultaneously delight in and are ashamed of admitting to: gluttonly, gambling, pornography, etc. I was hoping the author would more closely scrutinize what motivates people to indulge in such behaviors. If he had, I suppose the book would be twice as long. Alas, we get but a cursory glimpse. On the whole, I enjoyed reading "Vice." I might have enjoyed it more were it not for the writing style: commas containing clauses containing clauses containing...
• 
  Andrew

  This is a fun, light book, a quick read and amusing if not as laugh-out-loud funny as I was expecting it to be. Make no mistake, there are certainly laugh-out-loud moments, but it was less consistently hilarious than I thought it would be. It's definitely snarky and flip, and a lot of the style of writing that you hear on "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me", but that kind of snarkiness doesn't translate from politics to everyday life as well as one might think. In all an amusing few hours' read, even informative in places.
• 
  Seth

  Perhaps the most disturbing end result of reading this book is a sort of horrified fascination when listening to
  Peter Sagal on "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!" -- some of his jokes have a bit more of an edge, now that I know more about what he's seen and knows. The first few chapters are standard "square visits the swingers" kind of stuff, but it gets really fascinating as he starts to explore less carnal vices and turns his sights on things like conspicuous consumption and lying.
• 
  Caroline

  The Book of Vice is a must-read for any fans of Peter Sagal; heck, any fans of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!
  
  This is not an expose or groundbreaking, but is instead a humorous account of various 'vices' found in America. Looking at these parties and clubs through the eyes of a middle-aged man with a gift for humor really perked up my train ride in the morning and evening. Only down side is that it was so short!
• 
  K

  Absolutely does not live up to the premise, and the vices Sagal explores do not even fit the definition of vice he goes to some trouble to outline at the beginning. Sagal repeats anecdotes and observations and very occasionally strikes an off-puttingly prissy and judgmental tone. But still! Entertaining and made me laugh out loud a few times.
• 
  Carmen

  Swinging, Eating, Strip Clubs, Lying, Gambling, Consumption (as in buying) and Pornography. Very interesting. This never gets too dirty. The Lying Chapter is especially interesting. Fun footnotes.
• 
  Crysta

  Sagal methodically traces some of the the most common vices - lying, pornography, eating, gambling, etc - and explains why some people are drawn, and what pleasure they receive. I read this while in Vegas, which was the perfect setting for further musing.