The X in Sex: How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives by David Bainbridge. What is the X chromosome and how does it (along with its counterpart, the Y chromosome) affect our lives and society? But in answering the question, this genetic primer by Bainbridge is far from textbook dry--his explanations are humorous and accessible for the lay audience. I wouldn't, however, recommend this book to anyone who has gone into genetics at any depth--many of the facts presented in this book would probably be old hat for serious biology students. But if you're not already into biology, this is an excellent introduction (with a tiny grumble about misplacing critical information in the form of interludes instead of an early chapter) on the X chromosome. This chromosome not only helps determine sex, but it also contributes to many other aspects to our physiology--from vision, movement, immunity, and the very blood running through our veins. If anything, I came away liking how it was written.
The Paid Companion by Amanda Quick (a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz). This was a very strange book--well, not so strange if you've read other Quick books; they're rather formulaic and after the first one or three they begin to all blur--but it's strange in that I can only liken it to a gothic bodice-ripper penned by a 1950s pulp sci-fi author. So here's the plot: in Regency England a plucky lass has lost everything because her step-father gambled everything away on a bad investment venture. In her efforts to find a job, she gets hired by a mysterious earl who uses her as a decoy to deflect attention away from himself--he's busy trying to tract down his great-uncle's murderer. The villain turns out to be a mad scientist with a Dr. Evil-like laser beam of doom. If you're scratching your head over this, you're not the only one.
Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century by Katie Hickman. Courtesans--just highly paid prostitutes or something more? Hickman profiles five women of the more well-known demimonde: Sophia Baddeley--actress, compulsive spender, in love with an abusive man; Elizabeth Armistead--shrewd, lover and later wife of a well-known politician; Harriette Wilson--blackmailer and writer of a public memoir exposing her past paramours; Cora Pearl--eccentric, inventive, possible victim of political intrigue; and Catherine Walters--nicknamed 'Skittles' and as a horsewoman, had form-fitting riding clothes made to drive men out of their minds. These women were in powerful and influential positions but they were still not accepted in polite society. The men who went after them were not after just the sex (as the author argues) but the allure that these women presented. Are courtesans, intelligent and sexually uninhibited, the pre-feminists that Hickman suggest. I don't know--maybe for the successful ones--but the majority of the demimonde were constantly worried about getting more patrons to help pay for their extravagant lifestyle and some ended their lives rather destitute.
Currently reading: The same as mentioned the previous week. I also managed to get a hold of a copy of The Confusion. Also in the middle of a non-fiction book (with lots of pictures) about the Silk Road and a fictional work based on one of Darwin's hired hands while he was sailing about on the HMS Beagle.
