Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: the Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex.

OLIVIA HUDSON

Move over, Ruth Westheimer and Joyce Brothers. Unlike the advice from those popular sex counselors, Dr. Tatiana isn't limited to the human lovelorn. She helps creatures--be they insect or mammal--through any number of sexual difficulties by applying her extensive knowledge in evolutionary biology. She fields questions from a stick insect whose lover is obsessed with her, a fig wasp that laments that all the males she knows bite their girlfriends in half, and a lion bemoaning the fact that his mate is a nymphomaniac. While the presentation is parodistic, the information Judson provides is a rigorous overview of the reasons different animals mate as they do and how their sex acts figure into the evolutionary process. Originally published in hardcover in 2002. Owl Bks, 2003, 308 p., paperback, $94.00.