After really enjoying the free Kindle sample of this book, I was excited to finally have some spare cash to download the whole shebang. And while it was a funny and diverting (and very speedy) read, I was a bit disappointed. I love cultural histories ("Drink" by Iain Gately, "The Monster Show" by David J. Skal, "At Home" by Bill Bryson, etc) but this one ended up feeling a bit.... fluffy. There are a great many long quoted passages that the author relies on perhaps a bit too much, and his prose doesn't do a lot to offer contextualized interpretations of the gas that's been passed throughout history. His central theme seems to be that dudes think farts are funny and women think farts are embarrassing--not one of the greatest insights of human history. More generally, the book felt somehow incomplete and given short-shrift; the author includes quotes from Mozart's scatological letters to his mother and cousin, and dedicates some serious page time to Howard Stern, so it seems odd that he would have overlooked James Joyce's infamous obsession with his wife's anal eructations and the psychology of what it is that anyone ever finds appealing about our backsides at all.

In conclusion, I concede that perhaps I am being too critical of such a breezy subject and if you're looking for some light reading this book might be right up your, ahem, alley.