The first review is in, and good news… it’s a STAR!
The day I have been waiting for for SO LONG will soon be here. This book has been a labor of love (so to speak). After five years of research and writing and another year of edits and revision, I am so happy to be finally sending this book out into the world. I give you:
The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships.
A quick note about the cover. Some of you may have seen an earlier version of the cover, seen below. This represents two (male) lions in affectionate contact and, I think, captures the spirit of book pretty well. My editors, agents, and the publisher all loved it.
But then, the UK publisher (Cannongate, June 2024) showed me their intended cover and the US team and I immediately loved it and decided to use that in the US as well, so the lions cover was swapped out. I still have a lot of affection for the previous cover, so I hope it gets some use, maybe for the paperback.
The book will be officially available on February 4th, but you can pre-order the book now. I strongly encourage you to find it in your local bookstore, IndieBound, or order directly from the publisher. (Free shipping if you hit $35, so just one more cheap book and you’ll be there!) But of course you can also pre-order from Amazon. And no matter what, I hope you will leave a review on the Amazon page, because those reviews do drive a lot of sales.
Okay, so, as I said above, the first review has now been published and it’s from Publishers Weekly. For those that don’t know, this is the major trade magazine for the book publishing industry. It is highly influential among libraries, bookstores, publishers, literary agencies, distributors, and so on. They review many thousands of books each year, but only about 5% receive a “star,” their way of marking a book that is especially strong or important. And, well…. WE GOT A STAR!
You can read the review here. It’s very short, but very strong, and I am absolutely over the moon about it. FINALLY I have some independent validation that we have produced something of value. Writing a book is an enormously laborious and frustrating project. By the end, you end up so sick of the whole thing that you want to just put it behind you and move on. But then, the reviews start coming out and, if they’re positive, they breathe fresh new life and enthusiasm into the whole project. So that’s where we are. The first review is very positive and, since it’s PW, this will hopefully drive a lot more places to review the book and hopefully we can generate a lot of press buzz when the book comes out. (I have heard about a couple of outlets that are considering reviewing the book, but I don’t want to jinx it!)
So you may be wondering, what is the book all about? The PW review is a good summary, but in my own words, I would say that the book is about the very diverse and creative ways that animals engage sex, gender, and sexual relationships in order to survive and thrive.
The book was written very much in response to the current moment of social and sexual upheaval. Young people are approaching these matters in very different ways than generations past. From transgender, nonbinary, and non-conforming gender expression; to pansexual, demisexual, and heteroflexible sexualities; to consensual non-monogamy, polyamory, and relationship anarchy, the young generation is not having it when it comes to the traditional approach to dating, marriage, and family life. But what does this all mean? Reactions vary from celebrating the creative exploration to all-out panic that the foundations of our society are crumbling.
The Sexual Evolution is my attempt to contribute to this national conversation by detailing what the field of biology has to say about all of this. In fact, the reason I felt compelled to write this book was because of my irritation that biology is conspicuously absent from the public discussion. We have heard from politicians and preachers and lawyers, we talk about rights and protections, sports leagues and bathrooms, but what does science say about all of this? After all, at their core, sex, gender, sexuality, and even sexual relationships are biological phenomena, so shouldn’t we start there?
It turns out that sex and gender have a very long history. These concepts have been developing in animals for hundreds of millions years and, at least in social animals, it is a key way that animals interact with one another with important implications far beyond procreation. In short, animals have been experimenting with creative approaches to sex and gender for millions of years, so it’s not so shocking that humans have this instinct also.
And, to be clear, I am definitely not saying that we can find the answers to all of our questions by observing animals. But, considering the long evolutionary history of sex, isn’t it a good place to start?
For a more polished synopsis, here is what we wrote for the publishers’ summary:
An Immense World meets Sex at Dawn in this fascinating exploration of sexual behavior throughout the animal kingdom, as evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents argues persuasively that many of our supposedly modern ideas about gender and human sexuality are, in fact, deeply rooted in our animal ancestors.
Evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents knows what makes humans unique—and it’s most definitely not our sexual diversity. A professor at John Jay College, Lents has spent his career studying what makes us, well, us, and contrary to what the culture warriors want people to believe—diverse sexual behavior is not a new development, or even a human one. It didn’t just emerge from a progressive culture; it’s the product of billions of years of evolutionary experimentation throughout the animal kingdom. It’s not a modern story, a Florida story, or even a human story. It’s a biological story.
In The Sexual Evolution, Lents takes readers on a journey through the animal world, from insects to apes, revealing what the incredible array of sexual diversity can teach us about our own diverse beauty. Nature, it turns out, has made a lot of space for diverse genders and sexual behaviors. And why? Because when it comes to evolution—diversity wins. This is not just a political or social message, instead it’s rooted in science and cultivated from understanding the full breadth of sexuality that exists throughout the world.
With shades of both Frans de Waal and Esther Perel, Lents’s storytelling is as fascinating as it is topical, offering eye-opening stories about the diversity of animal life, while relating it to our own sexual journey as a species. At once a forceful rebuttal to bigotry and a captivating dive into the secret sex lives of animals, The Sexual Evolution is the rare book of pop science that leans into the controversy. Sex, the reactionaries say, should only be for procreation between a man and a woman, anything else goes against nature. Well, nature would like a word with them.
That sums it up pretty well. I hope you’ll considering reading the book!
-NHL
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