PT Bookshelf: From Parenting to Perceptions

Crawling: A Father's First Year
By Elisha Cooper (Pantheon Books)
"There's a head sticking out of my best friend. This is insane." The opening lines set the pace for a wry, frank, and uniquely paternal perspective on initiation into a parent's life. Cooper, a children's book author and illustrator, admits early on that he never liked children, and liked parents even less (except his own). But this young father and husband grows quickly. Much about raising a baby is universal, so Cooper uses tales, details, and reflections economically, sparing us both gushes of emotion and a deluge of the mundane. We witness the suctioning of snot from a tiny nose and the softening of a skeptical heart, but both are inlaid with humor and insight. As Cooper sobs in the final scene, filled with love for his daughter and doubts about himself, you realize that the one learning to crawl is not the baby but the dad.

—Matthew Hutson
The Science of Orgasm
By Barry R. Komisaruk, Carlos Beyer-Flores, and Beverly Whipple (The Johns Hopkins University Press)
Disclaimer: Don't expect this book to contain diagrams detailing the art of giving your partner multiple orgasms. Rather, it covers the "multiorgasm" by highlighting the role of the pubococcygeus muscle and citing studies speculating on the function of mindset. More of a reference manual than a how-to guide, The Science of Orgasm takes a brainy perspective on the big O. Approach the book with any question you can conjure about the whys and wherefores of orgasm and you'll receive a minutely detailed answer that incorporates findings from the latest sex research. Do orgasms serve a biological function? How are they influenced by aging? How do drugs, from cocaine to alcohol to Zoloft, affect them? After tackling the answers to these questions and many more, the authors admit that the brain regions responsible are still under debate: Orgasm research has not yet peaked.

—Katie Gilbert
Strange and Dangerous Dreams: The Fine Line Between Adventure and Madness
By Geoff Powter (The Mountaineers Books)
An explorer's fiercely competitive nature drives him to the North Pole. On his return, he meets a chilly end just miles from salvation. A woman, unhinged by heartbreak, boards a sailboat alone, convinced that circumnavigating the globe will allow her to shed her psychic baggage. She is never seen again. Clinical psychologist Powter dissects the personal odysseys of adventurers, including Meriwether Lewis and Aleister Crowley, in an attempt to determine when healthy risk taking gives way to madness. Powter's postmortem diagnoses of his subjects deliver no clear answers, but readers will likely find themselves swept up in these tales of emotional strife and physical hardship.

—Orli Van Mourik
A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives
By Cordelia Fine (W.W. Norton)
We convince ourselves that we're all whipsmart valedictorian manques (had we just cared a bit more back then...), we guard against self-critical information with the zeal of a star DA, we display not the slightest aptitude for basic statistics—especially when the need to justify our own choices arises—and we generally sail through life blanketed in a consciousness that both insulates and smothers. Fine, a young Oxbridge-trained psychologist and philosopher, catalogs this mental scramble in wry, spirited prose. While readers may occasionally balk at the detailed study descriptions, Fine is ever entertaining on the bigotry and pigheadedness of those nearest and dearest to her: her husband's abject delight on encountering evidence of Scottish thrift; her two-year-old's glee in chastising a naughty playmate. Fine succeeds marvelously at a tricky task—exposing the psychological hijinks and hijacks that propel us forward.