Angier wants the body returned from cliché, pathology and condescension — not softened into mystique, but understood in its complexity, intelligence and strangeness.

Thus, the book became in full, a sharp, expansive work of popular science about the female body. She covers anatomy, hormones, chromosomes, sex, reproduction, evolution, desire, menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, breast tissue, eggs, beauty, strength, culture, myth. It isn't a neutral biological tour, but rather a lively argument against the dreary determinisms that have so often been attached to women’s bodies. 

The result is funny, combative, detailed and very late-90s in the best and worst ways: big science-writing confidence, lots of metaphor, an open war with biological reductionism, and a strong sense that anatomy is never simply anatomy once culture gets hold of it. A good one for readers of feminist science writing, gender studies, corporeality, popular biology, medical humanities, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Emily Martin, Cordelia Fine, or anyone interested in how the body becomes a battleground for explanation.

Virago paperback, published 1999. First published in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Company, New York. Good second-hand condition from photos, with light cover rubbing, handling and edgewear. Internally clean.