Rating: 
Summary: A book both women AND men should read
Review: Angier ties together, in a highly readable manner, the complexities of the human body very, very well all the while never loosing site of the whole. I disagree with her on a few points. I don't think she sufficiently looked at human relationships as far as she could but, overall, this is minor.
Rating:
Summary: Mixing metaphor and mystique
Review: Angier uses her strong journalist's skills in biology to guide us on an encyclopaedic journey. The excursion examines nearly every aspect of women's bodies, with many mysteries unveiled and hidden facets exposed. She mixes clinical findings with emotional responses in a rich set of information, and no little opinion on meanings. There are countless insights here, and her talent with words makes the reading an easy task. It's a pity her introduction pays only condescending consideration to the value this book might have for male readers. There's treasure here for anyone who wishes to understand the poorly dealt with aspects of what it means to be a woman. While her exposition covers an extensive array of topics, perhaps the chapter on hormones is of greatest value. Spending much of her time dispensing with what she deems mythology, she underpins her opinions with a hefty dose of information on which hormones are important to a woman's well-being. It's a comprehensive view of the human body's operations reaching well beyond either pure biology or medicine. Still, the information applies to all human bodies, depending on the hormone, reaching well beyond her expressed, if confined, audience. We all need to better understand what is going on in our bodies. Angier threads personal experiences into the narrative with practiced ease. Her prose is witty and inventive, fertile with metaphor. She's present on almost every page, although there is nothing obtrusive in learning she suffers a thyroid condition, nor in standing with her in an operating theatre. Instead, her personal occurrences bring us closer to the humanity she imparts with these examples. They are situations many women experience, yet occuring without women being told of their cause and likely impact. She uses many of these examples in her attempts to dispel the mythology surrounding many women's physical conditions. Angier's eloquence may dazzle the unwary, but the careful reader will discern a wealth of inconsistencies. She's at pains to demonstrate her knowledge of the Darwinian paradigm. Unfortunately, her feminist rhetoric trips up her ambition for scientific detachment. Glorying in the massive nerve network of the clitoris compared to the penis, she exults: "Who would want a shotgun when you can have a semi-automatic?" This invidious contrast ignores that it was evolution that granted these gender differences. Neither sex has had a conscious choice in their physiognomy. She ranges over many scientific achievements in revealing the body's features, ignoring that men performed the significant amount of the research available to make this book. Learning the biology and considering our evolutionary roots is rewarding, but the aim of elevating women is undercut by disparaging men. The book, therefore, is only a qualified success. For a book based on scientific research, her failure to provide references is startling. She calls her bibliography "References" but it takes a serious student to pursue her sources. After building her credibility with a wide-ranging and vivid narrative, in the final chapters she nearly throws it all away. From her crusade to inform us about what's important to and about women, she suddenly elevates her soapbox with a vituperative assault on evolutionary psychology. This is a strange departure, since she's spent much of her text reassuring us of her Darwinian credentials. In this onslaught, she's suddenly given to misquotes, out of context citations and very selective research results. With so much complex information presented in the remainder of the book, she suddenly disturbingly simplifies here. Her celebration of the woman's body and psyche is badly marred by her insistence that as "a free and fiery primate" knowledgeable women will attain supremacy over the world's problems. Dismissing a wealth of work done in recent years on primate behaviour alone is not the way to increase the knowledge store.
Rating: 
Summary: Journalistic Examination of Woman-ness
Review: Even though I haven't actually read this book in a couple of years, I constantly refer to it and recommend it to any woman I know. Angier's holistic examination of all things female--from biology to mythology (and/or nasty rumors)--encourages both pride and amazement in the female body and psyche. If you're female, you definately *need* to read Angier's book, which should be required reading in high school.
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: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Information, Richly Delivered
Review: Reading 'Woman: An Intimate Geography' is a bit like eating a decadently rich chocolate cake. Each chapter delivers information and insight that's nourishing, delicious, and -- almost -- more than I could consume in one sitting. This book offers a wealth of information delivered with gorgeous language, quirky insights, critical observations, telling stories and wry humor. It's a fascinating and provocative read. Natalie Angier's language is as vividly descriptive and as compelling as the wide-ranging content she conveys. 'Woman' is a terrific source of concepts to ponder and ideas to seed lively conversations. I was repeatedly fascinated by new-to-me 'factoids', and I particularly enjoyed the personal stories, from the author herself and other interesting women, that put faces on the facts and analysis. I recommend this book highly to anyone who loves a good read, who harbors curiosity about biology and life, and who likes to think. Enjoy!
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: Outstanding science writing
Review: This book a wonderful combination of science, opinion, and well-honed wit - the wit and opinion being so much better for being so well based in fact. The writing is filled with first-person passion: not the grim, militant kind, but affection that can afford a good laugh at its subject. Best of all, Angier's affection for her topic (herself included) seems equally based on romanticism and research. Being in a species with two sexes is interesting, but news from the other side is rarely balanced, complete, or even comprehensible. I value Angier's eloquence and clarity. I also value her ability to incorporate new information into her views, instead of shouting down whatever doesn't match some political manifesto. The only fault I find in this book is that there is not more of it. The years since she wrote the book have added intriguing facts to the pile such as the genes in embryonic brains that express differently in male and female, long before hormonal effects take hold. Even when "Woman" was written, though, there was plenty of information about matrilineal mitochondria that she could have used - it would have enriched her discussion of genetics. Also, she omitted discussion of the relatively rare women who succeed in the hard sciences. Keeping with her tone, there would have been no need to compare them to the men in the field. They would have been interesting enough in their own right. I am not a woman myself, just an admirer, companion, co-worker, and occasional visitor. I was very happy to see a writer who not only has such agreeable views, but brings such a wealth of knowledge to the discussion and brings herself, too. Brava!
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: 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.
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