Woman: An Intimate Geography
by Natalie Angier
List Price:
Our Price: $6.85
You Save: $9.10 (57%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Natalie AngierEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-02-15
ISBN: 0385498411
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Anchor
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780385498418
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Book Reviews of Woman: An Intimate Geography
Book Review: great read...enjoyed every page
Summary: 4 Stars
Woman: An Intimate Geography, by Natalie Angier, is an absolute must read...a must read for Women, definitely; but, also, I would even recommend it for men to read--married men. It is a brilliant masterpiece.
Angier is a gifted writer. Her sentences are fluid, informed, and entertaining. She says things and phrases things in ways I would not be able to even if I had spent hours planning. She is a "feminist"; but, she is not angry, does not hate men, and loves being a woman. This is the kind of woman I would love be around.
Angier's book starts at the ground level and works its way up through woman: the intricacies of female anatomy--the who, what, why, where, when, and how--right through to the heart, the brain, and out into society where women encounter other women and men. This book is not about stereotypes--although many stereotypes are dealt with--and, it is not about woman being better than or inferior to man--the sexes are not pitted against each other. Angier presents Woman: plain and complex, simple and intricate, beautiful and homely, passive and aggressive, clean and dirty, and freed and bound.
The one major contention I have with the book is the heavy dependence on the theory of evolution. Where she can't explain something by evolution's terms, she just shrugs her shoulders--never once considering a Divine Author, an Intelligent Designer. And, while I greatly appreciated and learned a lot from the constant comparison of humans to certain types of apes, I have a hard time swallowing the idea that I can learn a lot more about myself from watching a female rhesus monkey. Yes, I learned a lot about those chimps and monkeys, and found that there were some "correlations", but, at the end of the day couldn't help but think, "Uhhh...but I'm a human." Though a Chimp's DNA encoding might be similar to ours by 99% (Angier 15), that small 1 % carries a lot of weight and makes a huge difference: we're not that similar.
In spite of that one minor, minor contention (I can't stress how minor it is), the book is high on my list of "must-reads". This will do for you, as a woman--Christian and not, alike--what all those other "women" books fail to do: breath life into your weary, tired bones. Angier proclaims on every page: it's effing great to be a woman; let's celebrate!
NOTE: I just read some reviews that gave this book a poor rating, and some of them seemed to have credence and I appreciate the concern they expressed; and, this is why i have given the book a four star rating and not five. It seems there may be some argument over Angier's data and her examination of that data. However, it is still a great read, as long as we take it for what it is: an interesting book written by a woman and not a scientific text book for biology class.
Summary of Woman: An Intimate Geography
With the clarity, insight, and sheer exuberance of language that make her one of The New York Times's premier stylists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier lifts the veil of secrecy from that most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces, the female body. Angier takes readers on a mesmerizing tour of female anatomy and physiology that explores everything from organs to orgasm, and delves into topics such as exercise, menopause, and the mysterious properties of breast milk.A self-proclaimed "scientific fantasia of womanhood." Woman ultimately challenges widely accepted Darwinian-based gender stereotypes. Angier shows how cultural biases have influenced research in evolutionary psychology (the study of the biological bases of behavior) and consequently lead to dubious conclusions about "female nature." such as the idea that women are innately monogamous while men are natural philanderers.
But Angier doesn't just point fingers; she offers optimistic alternatives and transcends feminist polemics with an enlightened subversiveness that makes for a joyful, fresh vision of womanhood. Woman is a seminal work that will endure as an essential read for anyone intersted in how biology affects who we are?as women, as men, and as human beings.
Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, as far as the health care profession is concerned the standard operating design of the human body is male. So when a book comes along as beautifully written and endlessly informative as Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, it's a cause for major celebration. Written with whimsy and eloquence, her investigation into female physiology draws its inspiration not only from scientific and medical sources but also from mythology, history, art, and literature, layering biological factoids with her own personal encounters and arcane anecdotes from the history of science. Who knew, for example, that the clitoris--with 8,000 nerve fibers--packs double the pleasure of the penis; that the gene controlling cellular sensitivity to male androgens, ironically enough, resides on the X-chromosome; or that stress hormones like cortisol and corticosterone are the true precursors of friendship?
The mysteries of evolution are not a new subject for Angier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biology writer for the New York Times whose previous books include The Beauty of the Beastly and Natural Obsessions. The strengths of Woman begin with Angier's witty and evocative prose style, but its real contribution is the way it expands the definition of female "geography" beyond womb, breasts, and estrogen, down as far as the bimolecular substructure of DNA and up as high as the transcendent infrastructure of the human brain. --Patrizia DiLucchio
General Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in General Books
Adoption Healing... A Path to Recovery for Mothers Who Lost Children to Adoptionby Joe Soll, Karen Wilson Buterbaugh
Gateway Press, Inc.; Published: 2003-11-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.99
Price in other shops:
No Hormones, No Fear: A Natural Journey Through Menopauseby Trisha Posner
Villard; Published: 2002-11-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
The Myth of Osteoporosisby Gillian Sanson
MCD Century Publications; Published: 2003-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.57
Price in other shops:
The Lupus Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Familiesby Daniel J Wallace.
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.20
Price in other shops:
The Power of 4: Your Ultimate Guide Guaranteed to Change Your Body and Transform Your Lifeby Paula Owens
Paula Owens; Published: 2009-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.69
Price in other shops:
Natural Hormone Balance for Women: Look Younger, Feel Stronger, and Live Life with Exuberanceby Uzzi Reiss
Atria; Published: 2002-01-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.71
Price in other shops:
Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45by Christopher Hopkins
HCI; Published: 2008-03-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
The Nursing Mother's Companion: Revised Editionby Kathleen Huggins
Harvard Common Press; Published: 2005-03-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops:
Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancyby Mayo Clinic
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2004-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops:
Taking Charge of Your Fertility, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Healthby Toni Weschler
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2006-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.15
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Woman at Point Zero: Second Editionby Nawal El Saadawi
Zed Books; Published: 2007-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.93
Price in other shops:
Vaginas: An Owner's Manualby Carol Livoti, Elizabeth Topp
Thunder's Mouth Press; Published: 2004-07-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.77
Price in other shops:
Annie John: A Novelby Jamaica Kincaid
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 1997-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.43
Price in other shops:
Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance (Women & Therapy Series)by Carol Gilligan, Annie G. Rogers
Harrington Park Press; Published: 1991-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $55.23
The Clitourist: A Guide to One of the Hottest Spots on Earthby Karen Salmansohn
Universe; Published: 2002-06-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.91
Price in other shops:
Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Eraby Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Judy Norsigian
Touchstone; Published: 2005-04-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.08
Price in other shops:
The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Traumaby Annie Rogers
Ballantine Books; Published: 2007-07-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.15
Price in other shops:
Lectures on the Psychology of Womenby Joan Chrisler, Carla Golden, Patricia Rozee
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 2007-07-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $61.26
The Beauty of the Beastlyby Natalie Angier
Mariner Books; Published: 1996-04-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.28
Price in other shops:
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Scienceby Natalie Angier
Mariner Books; Published: 2008-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.66
Price in other shops: