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A review by melanoman
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson
4.0
My family read this book together to pass the time on our weekly trip to my parent's house. The short chapters and anecdotal style were particularly well suited to the venue.
Dr. Judson (aka Dr. Tatiana) uses a fictional advice column to introduce a species with differentiated sexual characteristics in each section, then compares and contrasts other species. The variety of material is excellent, the descriptions are clear and compelling, and the analysis is at good level for a non-biologist to enjoy.
Many popular biology books draw parallels to human behavior and try to use the text to carry a subtext about human nature. With the advice column's anthropomorphized letters from mollusks and bacteria, I feared the same heavy-handed treatment from this book, but was pleasantly surprised. The first chapter or two takes on Bateman's Hypothesis (roughly that men are biologically prone to the promiscuous and women are biologically prone to monogamy) and tears it to shreds. A whole book on that theme would have been monotonous, but thankfully the remainder of the book moves on from the simplistic treatment commonly given to humans to explore less familiar species and provide a tidy thesis "Life isn't simple" from which any number of theories like Bateman's can be discarded.
Dr. Judson (aka Dr. Tatiana) uses a fictional advice column to introduce a species with differentiated sexual characteristics in each section, then compares and contrasts other species. The variety of material is excellent, the descriptions are clear and compelling, and the analysis is at good level for a non-biologist to enjoy.
Many popular biology books draw parallels to human behavior and try to use the text to carry a subtext about human nature. With the advice column's anthropomorphized letters from mollusks and bacteria, I feared the same heavy-handed treatment from this book, but was pleasantly surprised. The first chapter or two takes on Bateman's Hypothesis (roughly that men are biologically prone to the promiscuous and women are biologically prone to monogamy) and tears it to shreds. A whole book on that theme would have been monotonous, but thankfully the remainder of the book moves on from the simplistic treatment commonly given to humans to explore less familiar species and provide a tidy thesis "Life isn't simple" from which any number of theories like Bateman's can be discarded.