Rating: 
Summary: a total disappointment
Review: The book is millions miles away from what claimed in the review. If you are already a fairly well educated woman, this is absolutely not for you. I'd return the book if I could.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating subject matter, lively writing.
Review: Fascinating subject matter, lively writing, though she sometimes seems to get enamored of her own clever turns of phrase. Occasionally unnerving confluence of the personal and the factual, but actually, that's appropriate for the subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: She's a science writer????
Review: I must say that if this book had been written by say, a comic, I would not have half the objections to it that I do. Since the author is a science writer, I was VERY disappointed in the science and how it was both presented and handled in the book. I felt like I was reading P.J. O'Rourke, but without the disclaimer at the beginning of "I may not have all the statistics and science correct." If one seeks to be entertained, and basicly blips past all the attempts at science, then this book is for you, espescially if you are a woman. If, like me, you are a stickler for scientific accuracy in a "scientific" orientated book, then avoid this book, or you'll be kicking yourself when done with it.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-read for women seeking reinvigoration!
Review: Natalie Angier takes the reader on a spirited, engaging, and upbeat journey through the "geography" of womanhood today. This book reminded me of the best bathroom conversations with my fellow women, those sorts of private conversations where we celebrate together--without fear of "being heard" or, worse still, NOT being heard--the joys and tribulations of being women. So far beyond the doldrums of the "nature/nurture" debate, Angier shows us how we can love our flesh and our minds, be women together and individuals apart. A great companion to "The New Our Bodies Ourselves".
Rating:
Summary: A reference for women to turn to for the rest of their lives
Review: WOMAN is dazzling, a marvelous combination of scholarship, synthesis, and snide little asides. I love it! How the author is going to top herself after this book I can't imagine. It deserves all the praise and enthusiasm I can muster.
Rating:
Summary: Informative, political, intellectually complex,and funny.
Review: The writing just blows me away. Like all great writing, it's about its subject, and about everything; it's about x and y chromosomes, sex, and psychology the way Moby-Dick is about whales. Jennie Livingston
Rating:
Summary: Made me glad to be a woman without denigrating men
Review: Angier is witty and makes sometimes dense, often technical information interesting and easily understandable. I usually could only read a chapter per day because there was so much information. Most books that celebrate woman end up trashing men. This book doesn't fall into that trap. A very satisfying book.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting ideas on women gleaned from medical science
Review: Angier "speculates" (in the manner of Carl Sagan) from scientific knowledge about women's physiology and behavior to reach some very interesting and novel conclusions on sexuality, the relationship between men and women, sex bias in medical research and medicine, the evolution of the human species and its impact on sex roles in society. Fantastic reading for courses in general science, women's studies, anthropology, political and all the other social sciences, while still making for entertaining reading and fuel for many interesting conversations between sexes.
Rating:
Summary: Lucid, genuinely witty prose.
Review: "In the words of those iMac ads: Yum. This book is a genuine treat. Angier not only brilliantly unmasks the simplistic assumptions behind evolutionary psychology's approach to gender -- the whole "I am my eggs" woman-is-nurturer man-is-hunter schtick that fuels everything from Home Improvement to the Lewinsky debates on Crossfire -- but she does so in lucid, genuinely witty prose....An outstanding corrective, and a fun read too." From a review by Emily Nussbaum, Natural Living Today.
Rating:
Summary: Yuck
Review: It shouldn't take anyone terribly long to figure out why the New York Times has given this book not one but two rave reviews: the author is one of the paper's star reporters. And it's well known that the Times killed a bad review of the book, saying that it wasn't "fair". But what about being fair to us readers? Bad reviews of the book abound in the British and science press, and they are well deserved. This book is self serving and half baked--the author never misses an opportunity to brag about how strong she is, or what a good mother she is, or how she dated an Olympic swimmer in college. And the writing is just plain embarassing. But what really grates is Angier's paranoia--she swings wildly and fiercely at everything and everyone from Fred Lebow (former president of the New York Road Runner's Club who, Angier gloats, died of a brain tumor before he could irritate her further) to suitcases with wheels (which she considers whimpy). What's with this woman?
|
