Rating:  Summary: Informative, sensitive, and funny. Review: A really enjoyable read. Felt I was learning a lot while totally enjoying myself. Liked the use of personal experiences along with scientific data. The author has some fascinating theories as well as a great sense of humor.
Rating:  Summary: A great book for men who love women to read Review: This is a woman's book about the female body that every man who loves a woman should read. It is written with a fun and sassy tone that suits both men and women. Unlike other women's classics this book does not exclude men from the discussion of women and their bodies. My wife and I have read parts together, and that put us in a position to learn new things about each other (so to speak).
Rating:  Summary: I've never been prouder of a book I have edited. Review: Though I've just retired from Houghton Mifflin, WOMAN was one of the last books I received in a career of 48 years as an editor of books. I've never encountered a manuscript better written, wittier, more informative, more pungent. I'm proud that it will appear over my imprint, Peter Davison Books.
Rating:  Summary: wonderful, i urge this on males & females. Review: while, as some other reviewers have stated, all of this information can be found in college texts, medical reports and other data-sources these are not formats the average person finds nearby or is used to reading.
this book puts the information easily and comfortably into a reader's hands, while not over-simplifying or dumbing-down.
it gives more information than most casual readers would ever come across in one book and in a manner that is clear, interesting, in-depth, and makes one Want to find out more about the female body.
slow in parts, riveting in others. a MUST to read for both sexes.
Rating:  Summary: Fills a much needed niche Review: This delightfully simplistic book serves to fill a vital niche for the readership of so many mainstream Americans today, who not having either the ability or patience to read anything more difficult beyond an 11th grade reading level, will be readily satisfied with an equally simplistic prose and presentation of material. In essence, Woman paints a biological narrative around the vagina. Flowering, camp prose, as well as amusing attempts at the poetic fill page after page, as a female-empowered portrayal of the supposedly unique biology of womanhood is presented. Issues of breast size and sensitivity, strength of orgasm, and, especially, the supremacy of the clitoris is majorly and heavily emphasized. This book is highly recommended for young girls just starting puberty, as well as those women who while physically beyond puberty, shall we say, suffer from a delayed adolescence and have not quite reached an emotional and psychological maturity. The book will definitely appeal to the Cosmo-"girl" readership, as well as those requiring a "scientific" validation and praise of female physiology. This book will be of special help to women who weren't hugged enough as children, who grew up in a household with an emotionally aloof or absent father or mother, who have felt otherwise second best to maleness or have felt disgust or regret over their femaleness. On the other hand, mature minded, naturally confident, intelligent women, not needing a trite Oprah-and-Doctor-Phill-like good-feel rhetoric, who genuinely relish in their sensuality, and see their femaleness as a vital part of but not the whole of their existence will most likely find the book filled with boring and condescending tripe. Still, this is a major triumph for someone such as Ms. Angier, who although only has a bachelor's degree in English and not holding of any advanced degree in any field of science, has managed to nevertheless present herself as an authority on topics that usually takes other men and women many years to reach an unpretentious mastery of understanding and genuine, real authority.
Rating:  Summary: Well-worth the Time Review: There's more to a woman than meets the eye. You would think that being a woman would put you at the top of the list of knowing about ourselves. That just isn't the case. There is a lot we don't know about ourselves. Some we just assume, others we just try not to think about.
Natalie Angier has thought about them, researched them and comprised a book of them in "Woman: An intimate geography." Angier, a Pulitzer Prize Award winner has numerous books under her belt. She's also a regular writer for the New York Times science column.
In "Woman", Angier has divided the body into different areas where she goes into intimate detail. Her discussions include but are not limited to: the female egg, chromosomes, the uterus, menstruating, the clitoris, breasts, breast milk, ovaries, hormones (especially estrogen), female relationships, female aggression, muscles, and psychology. Everything you could think of relating to a woman and maybe some you haven't. To keep things in perspective she hasn't completely left out the men.
This has been an interesting read from beginning to end. In some areas the text is way over my head but the book is understandable and provides reams of data that I didn't know about myself and women in general. It also reinforced some things I did know. On a personal note, I learned there is such a great variance in breasts and menstrual bleeding that I'm normal after all. According to Angier, Hornet talk and "mastering words and barbed insults are an essential task of childhood." And here I thought we were just surrounded by little bitches.
"We are all women with many pasts. We are old primates and neohominids. We feel drawn toward other women, we feel a need to explain ourselves to them and to impress them, and we run away from women, we disavow them, or we keep them around only until the real thing comes along. We can do each other mischief, even violence, but we can do each other good as well. Both options are open to us, in the plastic opportunistic flow chart of our strategies and choices," says Angier.
I believe she's given us a better vessel with which to understand why we are the way we are and the many different forms of whom and what we are. She is positive. She is honest. No aspect of what she says makes any female form inadequate and unappreciated. Her book is a successful delivery of who and what we are and what we have the potential to become.
"An Intimate Geography" would be of interest to young ladies or senior citizens. We're never too old to learn about our bodies. It provides a framework for discussion with other women and helps to put us at ease with one another and ourselves. The 367 pages are well-worth the time.
Rating:  Summary: Pretty good, but I could do without the sexist comments Review: I am male. This book was semi-informative, but on every page one can expect a pedestrian and token comment about men. In one particularly insulting statement she insinuates that male behaviour is derivative of how bumbling sperm "behave."
Anyone, especially men, reading this book already understands the power women hold today and in our history and can do without these comments that only take away from what could have been a serious work.
Rating:  Summary: Beautifully written Review: This is an intricately told story of the biology of women. The book does mention in some detail about female biology but in a very funny, provocative and surprising way.
I admit I left this book on the book shelf for about a year, but as soon as I started reading, I could not put it down.
Rating:  Summary: I am WOMAN... Review: I love this book. From the history of hysterectomy to the evolution of the breasts, this book covers at least a thousand things you (especially if you're a woman, too) really ought to know about biological womanhood. Even better than that, it's written by a (female) science writer who can really write, and while it does at times get difficult (well, it's a science book), having to reread a paragraph every once in a while won't kill you -- in fact, it'll help you understand yourself. Better still, this is an empowering book. Natalie Angier is no 1960s feminist theorist; she's a thoroughly modern lady scientifically pointing out why the female body/mind is different, similar, complicated beyond our wildest dreams, ultimately beautiful and eminently worthy of praise. Drawing on anthropology (my thing, so I loved that), biology, psychology, genetics, and a host of other fields, Ms. Angier introduces facts, fallacies, theories, hypotheses, and the data itself, and while she sometimes draws her own conclusions, a great deal is left for the reader to make up her (or his -- men can read this book too!) own mind. She includes a healthy dose of speculation, but -- and this is crucial -- she recognizes in the text that she is speculating, she points out the actual data, and again she leaves us to agree with her, modify her ideas, or not. Bottom line: WOMAN is a treat and a half.
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