Also of interest...in weird scientists

Adventures in the Orgasmatron

by Christopher Turner

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $35)

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The “unhinged” but influential psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich was a fascinating character, said Michael Washburn in the San Francisco Chronicle. A prophet of the “apocalyptic orgasm,” which he believed to be a cure for everything from illness to fascism, the Austrian-born Freud acolyte counseled his followers to climb into metal-lined boxes in order to accumulate “orgone,” an imaginary particle said to enhance orgasmic potency. The Reich we meet here is a “maestro of crackpot science.”

How the Hippies Saved Physics

by David Kaiser

(Norton, $27)

“It’s rare to find quantum physics mentioned in the same breath with sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll,” said John Gribbin in The Wall Street Journal. David Kaiser’s new book makes the connection by chronicling a quartet of acid-dropping physics professors who in the 1970s made valuable contributions to the quantum concept known as entanglement. Kaiser exaggerates his heroes’ influence on mainstream physics, but his “romantic tale” of scientific revolution makes a rollicking read.

Medical Muses

by Asti Hustvedt

(Norton, $27)

This “consistently enthralling” book tracks the quest of a 19th-century French doctor to uncover the causes of female hysteria, said Kathryn Harrison in The New York Times. “As much showman as physician,” Jean-Martin Charcot drew crowds by using hypnosis to induce symptoms in his patients, whom he then treated with various implements of torture. Weighing which aspects of hysteria were real, Asti Hustvedt shows it’s a “chicken-and-egg” question whether the misogyny came first.

Edward Bancroft: Scientist, Author, Spy

by Thomas J. Schaeper

(Yale, $35)

The name Edward Bancroft probably won’t ring any bells except among scholars, said Jack Rakove in The New Republic. Thomas J. Schaeper’s “model biography” seeks to change that by shedding light on one of the more colorful and overlooked figures of the Revolutionary era. Bancroft achieved renown as a scientist, spending years in Dutch Guiana observing flora and fauna, notably the habits of electric eels. He achieved infamy, however, as a wartime traitor who spied for the British.