It is a rare event that I pick up a non-fiction book and actually enjoy reading it. Based on my track record, non-fiction usually results in disappointment: my previous experiences were mostly based on reading memoirs where I just didn’t sympathize with the authors. It thus failed to provide a temporary escape from reality, which I should say, is one of the major reasons why I read.

But, this current one is an exception. It is rare in many different ways, one of them being the fact that I had to go to my university’s Science and Engineering Library to borrow this one, which is a location that I rarely go to borrow books to read for fun. Another quirk is that this book isn’t your regular non-fiction read: it’s not a diary, not a memoir, nothing like that. Instead, this is actually a science book. But it’s not your regular science book; it’s a science book about sex, written in the format of an advice column.

Yes folks, you’ve read that correctly. It is written as an advice column, like your Dear Abby snippet in the newspaper. And yes, the topic is about sex. But not just sex, I mean SEX. Sex, from banana slugs to spotted hyenas, all explained from an evolutionary perspective. And that, is perhaps one of the most captivating aspects of this book, in my opinion.

This book is actually arranged in themes: from the basic, to violence in sex, to monogamy and infidelity, to homosexuality. And yes, it covers a wide variety of species, all of them writing their letters soliciting advice from the fictional Dr. Tatiana. And Dr. Tatiana answers all these sex questions in a wonderful and evolutionary manner. It definitely puts humans and human sexual behavior into perspective.

See, I was definitely impressed with the evolutionary perspective that this book has taken. Sexual behavior in many different species was explained, even radical ones, like for example the annoying habit of  the female praying mantis to bite off the head of the male during sex. I’ve learned that doing so makes the males go into a violent spasm that allows the sperm to fertilize the eggs better. Thus, it is death for procreation, something that in evolutionary terms, makes perfect sense.