For most of the recorded history of the development of humankind, the focus was centered on the male, and until quite recently, scientific research that supported the creation of new treatments and drugs for human maladies relied exclusively on male test subjects.
That gross oversight is now firmly in the rearview mirror, and for some of that enlightenment, we have Columbia University Ph.D. alum and researcher Cat Bohannon to thank for her insightful and arresting work of nonfiction, “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.” First published in the fall of 2023 and a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, the book was released as a Vintage paperback on Feb. 25, just in time for the observation of March as Women’s History Month (which, along with Black History Month and other observances that celebrate diversity, have become targets of the Trump administration; Google has already wiped them off its calendar.)
A truly stupendous amount of research buoys this long, long look at the female body, divided as it is into an entertaining introduction that surveys our nonhuman ancestry and nine eye-opening chapters on all things pertaining to the biology of women (“Milk,” “Womb,” “Brain,” “Menopause” and “Love” are a select few.) The narrative delves so deeply into the science, it would make for heavy reading but for the fact that Bohannon’s crisp writing style is leavened with humor and yields surprising new revelations on almost every page. The author is also very fond of supplying entertaining diversions; there are footnotes, sometimes in multiples, everywhere you look. The science is fascinating, and the footnotes are often hilarious. A case in point: In the first chapter, as Bohannon explains how colostrum, mammals’ milk produced only the first few days after birth, is so “super dense in immunological material and protein” that the cow’s version of it was used as an antibiotic before the discovery of penicillin, she appends one of the very shortest of her ubiquitous footnotes: “It’s also used to make a particularly sweet Indian cheese.”
The somewhat shocking bold statement that the phenomenon of live birth “took hold in an apocalypse” ends that first chapter. But the next expertly lays out the theory, accepted by many scientists, that the six-mile-wide asteroid that cratered the Earth 66 million years ago eventually led to the development of the human womb, as the survivors adapting in the great freeze that followed took to harboring their offspring within their bodies. Or, as Bohannon puts it, “mammalian bodies started veering off the main road. Instead of laying eggs, some number of ancient creatures started incubating them inside their bodies. Some of them became marsupials while others became eutherians like us – the placentals. We didn’t just keep our eggs warm in there; the entire female body became a gestation engine.”
Alert readers will note that I have not described much beyond the first two chapters. I’m still reading! And I am happily of one mind with back-cover blurbist Charles C. Mann, author of the best-selling “1491” and “1493,” who notes: “This book is almost fantastically interesting. Every few pages there would be some fact I didn’t know or an idea that was new to me, and I would ask my wife if she knew, and she would would say, ‘What! You’re kidding! No!’ And we’d end up talking for half an hour, and it would be midnight, and I’d only read eight pages.”
Bohannon appears at Santa Cruz Bookshop, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz, at 7 p.m. April 7 and with Angie Coiro at Kepler’s Books, 1010 El Camino Real in Menlo Park, at 7 p.m. April 8.
Two for the road: In a development we heartily encourage, two prominent authors, one a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the other a National Book Award nominee, have teamed up to get behind the wheel and tour Northern California bookstores together. Tommy Orange, of “There There” and “Wandering Stars” fame, and Kaveh Akbar, an Iranian-American poet whose first novel “Martyr!” was short-listed for the 2024 National Book Award, became best buds a few years ago after a literary reading led to them exchanging writing samples with each other, and they have now have set themselves a literary itinerary that will leave them little time for anything but talking about their friendship and Orange’s latest book, 2024’s “Wandering Stars.” Their buddy odyssey launches in San Francisco at 7 p.m. March 14 with an event at The Booksmith in the Haight and moves north the following day with a 2 p.m. session at the Finley Community Center in Santa Rosa sponsored by Copperfield’s Books (a ticketed event that costs $19.71) and a 6 p.m. appearance at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station sponsored by Point Reyes Books (also a ticketed event; it costs $5.) From there, it is on to Sacramento on March 16, where the duo will appear at Underground Books, 2814 35th St., at 5:30 p.m. (Admission is free; reserve a spot at eventbrite.com.) Their whirlwind tour winds up on March 17 with a “bagels and coffee event” at 11 a.m. at Sausalito Books by the Bay, followed by the final stop at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park at 7 p.m.
A choice made easier: Many a reader will frequently or occasionally turn to devouring their latest great read on a Kindle or similar electronic device— sometimes because it’s a work of deep science or historical fiction that motivates them to immediately further investigate a reference on the device, sometimes because they’re packing for a vacation and want “light” reading and sometimes just because the purchase price is more affordable. But the same good-hearted readers may be in conflict over the option because they want to support their friendly neighborhood bookstore, which up until recently has traded only in print volumes. Well, dandily to the rescue comes Bookshop.org, which partners with local bookstores all over the country to peddle ebooks on their behalf and give them money back on the purchase price. Stores that carry the link on their websites receive 30 percent of the purchase price made on all sales through the method. In addition, every six months, Bookshop takes 10 percent of its regular sales and puts them into a pool that is evenly divided and distributed to its independent bookstore partners. Both Orinda Books and Green Apple Books in San Francisco recently have posted about their delight over the arrangement. Go to the Bookshop.org to see if your favorite store has signed up.
Hooked on Books is a monthly column by Sue Gilmore on current literary buzz and can’t-miss upcoming book events. Look for it here every last Thursday of the month.
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