Woman: An Intimate Geography

Rating:
Summary: Humorous and Informative
Review: This book was an enjoyable read, covering female sexuality in a new, fun and exciting way. It replaces misinformation with facts and truth. I received this and another book for Christmas, Five Minutes to Orgasm for women. These two books helped me learn a lot while totally enjoying myself. Both mix the use of personal experience and scientific data in a lighthearted and humorous way. I recommend both highly for any woman who wants to learn more about herself, or for any man who wants to learn more about women

Rating:
Summary: ARGH!
Review: I hardly know where to begin there's so much wrong with this book. And though the author admits in the opening paragraph of the introduction that this is her personal attempt to find a way to think about the biology of being female without falling into the sludge of biological determinism, that is exactly what she does. This is not a scientific study in the least, either of the current or evolutionary female condition. Instead, it is a disjointed hodge-podge of anecdotes with a smattering of facts. Rehashed facts, at that. I think what alarmed me the most was the preponderous of Angier to deal with sexuality in a primarily reproductive mode. Certainly reproduction is essential, but what about post menopausal sex? Bisexual, or lesbian sex? Isn't that part of the female experience as well? Not just sperm meeting ova? But then, at no time in the book does Angier seem like an objective observor. Lending a pedantic tone to the book, and chipping away at the foundation of whatever basis she's attempting to lay. Strangely enough, I'm glad I read the book because it clearly illustrates how far women have yet to come in understanding ourselves.

Rating:
Summary: This is one fantastic book
Review: I read this wonderful dissertation with wonder and a certain amount of awe. I recommend this book for any man that lives with or loves any woman who he is proud of. Since no man knows everything about women, then they just might need some help in understanding them, and learning what makes them tick; and why, along the way. This book tells it all, and does it in plain english using words and phrases that everyone can understand. It is a wonderful, warm and informative educational read from the first page to the last. It just might also be useful for women who want to learn more about their own bodies and mind, and what makes them tick, for their own personal purposes. I love my mate more than anything and will go to any length to try to please her. One way to accomplish this is to read quality material that is written about how women work, and why. This wonderful book fills that need in glorious detail on every page. I would say that this book is one that delievers way more than the mere title reveals. It is worth three times the asking price. I have read it three times and will read it again soon. Each time that I read it, I learn more, and find something that I missed the time before. Thank you, Ms. author for giving us this wonderful work about women and how they work. My e-mail address is [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Much more than science
Review: I found this book to be very good in several areas, although a bit wordy. The basic premise of woman as the primordial mother of us all is not a new one but it is expanded and expounded on here in a manner that I found very entertaining and informative. I don't think that the reviews reviling the science in this book caught the full implications. Angier was not dealing strictly with biology; she was discussing the emotional, psychological, and spiritual levels of being a woman as well. I can appreciate the humor that the book was written with as well. I have read several books dealing with womanhood that took themselves far too seriously and turned me off with the man-bashing. This one didn't have that problem.

Rating:
Summary: Expanding a man's mind!
Review: What I look for in any book is something new, be it humour, wisdom, splendid writing or plain information. 'Woman' supplies all four.

After reading this book I feel as if I'm looking at women with new eyes. Any book that expands the mind is worth reading.

The polarised reviews suggest that this is a great book - if it's ordinary, why the fuss? - read it and make up your own mind. Love it or hate it, you will be a changed person after.

Rating:
Summary: My daughters AND my son need to read this book!
Review: Natalie Angier does the entire species a service by combining honesty with humor, controversy with creativity, fun(ny) with facts, and enlightenment with esthetics! She tackles "traditional" anatomy/physiology, folk "wisdom," and "current" evolutionary biology, seeking to find the truth by questioning, research, sensing, and speculating rather than by just accepting what is claimed as truth. In addition, her tone is of sincere concern that all of us find the truth, too. Speaking as one of three male children, over 40 years' of false-sounding "explanations," gross misinformation, clear lies, and obvious ignorance have finally, in just the last week, begun to be corrected after reading this excellent book. SOMEONE, and I personally hope it is Natalie Angier, has GOT to straighten the species out re. the XY in as effective a manner as _Woman: An Intimate Geography_ will re. the XX!

Rating:
Summary: For the intelligent, open-minded, inquisitive reader...
Review: Others need not "apply". Angier's "Woman" is remarkably informative AND entertainingly presented. My only regret is not having read it before having an elective hysterectomy. Every gynecologist and surgeon should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Scientific poetry of the body
Review: Woman: An Intimate Geography is the most delightful and informative book on the physiology of women I have ever read. The range of Angier's research leaves almost no aspect of the female body unexplored or unexplained. Even, for example, such barbaric rituals as infibulation and clitorodectomy (still shockingly practiced in as many as 28 countries) are depicted for us in a rare combination of absolute fidelity to scientific detail, and with a moral outrage that is paradoxically spiritual.

WOMAN, throughout its nearly four hundred pages, is exquisitely written. By brilliantly blending her scientific data with acute personal insights and by her expert use of language--exuberant and optimistic when the message is merry, solemn and meticulous when the message is most serious--Angier manages to create for her reader a kind of scientific poetry of the body.

Ms. Angier's book should appeal to women of all ages: to adolescents for whom she lucidly illuminates the lovely tapestries of their bodies; to women of child-bearing age whom her encyclopedic information will help in making the difficult reproductive decisions of our era; and it will appeal to older women who have lived through so much feminist history (and turmoil)since Simone de Beauvoir first expelled us from the Garden of Ignorance. Angier's stylistic eloquence bathes us all in her affection and respect for women; she blesses us with the strength and resilience of her language; she nourishes us, evoking our most primordial response even as we absorb her intellectual richness at their source--giving us what every human needs--affection and knowledge, from our stem cells to the final Silence.

Rating:
Summary: Elegant, eloquent, heartening, slanted, human.
Review: This book was one of the most affirming texts I have ever read. Angier is funny as well as caring, and sprinkles her assertions, assumptions and questions with great humor, wordplay and humanity. She calls herself a "female chauvanist sow" very early on in the book, and proves it throughout. Her resources are indeed selective, but this book is not meant to be an authoritative text, but rather a reconsideration of the nature of female biology. I hope that we can all come round to some her viewpoints, for at least a while. I think her take on the clitoris is the finest section of the book. I was fascinated by her perspectives and her introduction of interesting examples that highlight what we might not always see in those authoritative texts or in the slide shows they show to fifth graders with "Mr. Uterus" (yes, *Mr* Uterus) and all the rest. I'm going to save this book, and hope than any daughters I have pick it up. I recommend this book to everyone, women, and men who care to learn more about the female human, and I thank Ms. Angier for writing this book. It was very important for me to read.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful and thought provoking
Review: as the cliche goes, i laughed, i cried. angier has a way with words that allows the reader to feel as if she is speaking directly towards her. amidst the humorous sarcastic comments, her book educates the reader. she explains things about our own bodies that i don't know how i lived without knowing. this book isn't the male-bashing propaganda that i expected. instead it is a beautifully constructed insight into what our bodies are like and why they are that way--and in instances when the authorities are uncertain, angier presenst the possibilities with their pros and cons and leaves it to the reader to come to their own conclusions. i urge every girl, every woman to read this book. even if someone feels that they know all the facts, angier will provoke you to think about them--to turn them over and over in your mind until you can finally be comfortable with your body.