Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, by Olivia Judson ★★★★★

A great look at the evolutionary biology of sex, presented as a collection of newspaper advice columns where “Dr. Tatiana” answers questions sent in by everything from slime-molds to vertebrates. Judson keeps the pace lively and the writing humorous, mixing the exposition of the gobsmackingly weird mating behaviors found throughout the animal world with our current understanding of the evolutionary principles that give rise to them. If you’re designing aliens for your science fiction setting, this book is full of inspirational material (in the vein of the Alien Sex panels given at local science fiction conventions by SF author and physical anthropologist Patricia MacEwen). This book could also be a good way to liven up the study of biology for a high school student with a dry textbook; if you have more academic pursuits in mind, there’s an excellent set of references in the back.