Although the title of this book implies a look at animal behavior in a broad sense, it solely focuses on one reproductive behavior, lordosis. Indeed, this work was inspired by the author’s 50+ year career, and his attempt to find the molecular and cellular underpinnings of a robust behavior in rodents. As such, the reader not only gets a detailed summary of the findings, but also a glimpse into what a scientist’s legacy looks like, as well as at the curvilinear trajectory that is typically taken by the research process. The narrative is clearly defined and divided into logical chapters, each building on the previous one. Readers also benefit from a succinct explanation of the “problem” at the start of each chapter and a brief summary of the “principle inferred” at the end.
However, the crisp and precise scientific writing style that makes this complex story easy to follow is ironically also one of the book’s main drawbacks. In the flap copy we are promised a “close-up, conversational perspective on [the] scientific struggles and successes…”, yet any emotion that might be expected from a semi-biographical work is necessarily stifled by the writing style. To be fair, the author’s conversational style is very apparent throughout the book, but he sounds more like the “professor” lecturing his students than the “person” sharing in a lifetime of work. This is somewhat unfortunate since students benefit immensely from seeing successful scientists as “normal humans” dealing with the vagaries and challenges of testing hypotheses in animal model systems while managing small teams of trainees. For this reason, I suspect that naïve readers looking to find a “cool” scientific story will find this book relatively technical and dry, whereas more seasoned students looking to simply learn about the neurobiological mechanisms controlling reproductive behaviors will enjoy this read. Just be aware that although the author clearly does not want to get very technical with his methodology, he does make assumptions of the reader’s prior knowledge. Having some background in molecular and cell biology will definitely serve the reader well.
