What a good idea this is by Dr Judson, biologist, science journalist, and research fellow at Imperial College. The eminent and learned but – alas – fictional Dr Tatiana is a Dr Doolittle agony aunt whom she created. Not only is this kindly columnist able to speak with the animals, but she readily sympathises with them in their sexual distress, and gives advice. Yes, the book is all about procreation, being sub-titled ‘The definitive guide to the evolutionary biology of sex.’

This author starts her book with the statement that ‘If not for sex, much of what is flamboyant and beautiful in nature would not exist.’ Plants would not bloom. Birds would not sing. Deer would not sprout antlers. And sex is a multitude of procedures, the wafting of pollen (by flowering plants), the casual release of sperm and eggs (frequently favoured as a means), the darts of snails, the packets of deposited sperm (left by many invertebrates in case females should pass by) and … well, try thinking of some sexual arrangement not employed within the plant or animal kingdom.

The omniscient and helpful Dr Tatiana provides the means whereby we happy readers learn of many of these systems – ‘Dear Dr Tatiana, I’m a sagebrush cricket, and I’ve just moulted into manhood … I (have) noticed some teeth on my back … What are they for?’ ‘Dear Dr T., I’m a 27-year-old African elephant … (but) I feel angry all the time – if I see another bull I want to kill him … Worst of all, my penis has turned green …’. ‘I’m a male mite, … the scourge of the lesser mealworm beetle … (when) making love with one of my sisters my mother’s belly burst.’ ‘I’m a redback spider, and I’m a failure … I vaulted into her jaws, but she spat me out … Why did she spurn the ultimate sacrifice?’

Each piece of agony is followed both by wisdom (from Dr T.) and a fulsome explanation (from Dr J.) about that particular mode of genetic rearrangement. Numerous consequences are also discussed, the surviving sibling having eaten all its rivals, the invasion of hummingbirds by mites when they drink at flowers, the occasional switch to asexuality, the phenomenon called outbreeding depression, the consumption of earlier offspring by a male newcomer, and on and on. Sex is far more than copulation, and Olivia Judson has done extensive, learned and witty justice to her subject, with the 37 pages of bibliography being testament to her scholarly approach. The book has ‘Style and wit, laced with authority,’ as Kirkus reviewed it, and so it does, most emphatically.

Anthony Smith