Lucy Cooke's Bitch shows just how far we have come in seeing nature's females for what they actually are.'

Surprising sex lives of the animal kingdom: From bondage-loving spiders to 'Scrooge-like' lobsters who save their sperm for a female who's 'worth it', BITCH lifts the lid on kinky creatures

Best books of 2022 so far: Zoologist Lucy Cooke's hilarious and enlightening book reclaims evolutionary biology for females of all species.

Mr Darwin, your time is up...This is the evolutionary reboot us bitches have been waiting for.

Brilliant ... Cooke is a superb science writer

Beautifully written, very funny and deeply important - Lucy Cooke blows two centuries of sexist myths right out of biology.

A complete and precise exploration of sex , what a joy!

Fun, informative and revolutionary all at once, Bitch should be required reading in school. This is a joyous, and often hilarious, romp in which Cooke simultaneously does justice to the actual data, gives voice to the substantive contributions of women scientists, and demolishes bias, blindness and ignorance about sex in the academy and in the public. After reading this book one will never look at a clownfish, a barnacle, an orca, an albatross or a human the same way again. And the world will be better for it.

Lucy Cooke's marvellous Bitch blasts the dust off stuffy old ideas to celebrate the true and wildly diverse influence of femal creatures throughout the animal kingdom, revealing them to be every bit as promiscuous, competitive, aggressive and dynamic as males ... In chapters fizzing with X-rated factoids, Cooke merrily demolishes myth after myth about our wild sisters ... Never mean or boring. It's exhilarating to zip through the world with her as she points out what has been missed or misinterpreted.

A colourful, committed and deeply informed book.

A dazzling, funny and elegantly angry demolition of our preconceptions about female behaviour and sex in the animal kingdom ... Bitch is a blast. I read it, my jaw sagging in astonishment, jotting down favourite parts to send to friends and reading out snippets gleefully

This is a vital book that blew me away; kick -ass, informative and astonishing . Discovering how Darwin ingrained and entrenched the patriarchy is hugely illuminating to our present culture. Give her a series immediately!

Lucy Cooke's scientific and brilliant takedown of stereotypes of female submissiveness in the animal kingdom: 'Male animals led swashbuckling lives of thrusting agency ... while females meekly followed'. So went the received wisdom when broadcaster and author Cooke first studied zoology. This revelatory, fabulously entertaining book shows how deluded that thinking is. From the dominant female lemurs of Madagascar, and the murderous meekat mothers of the Kalahari, to female fruit flies that play the field, Cooke introduces dozens of animals whose natural behaviour preferences dismantle the hoary old stereotypes.

It's humorous, absorbing, sometimes shocking (for a variety of reasons), and bound to be a conversation starter. It certainly prompted some raised eyebrows and discussions when I shared tidbits of information from it with friends and family.

Hits the right balance between informative and entertaining; popular science fans will want to check it out.

A book that is tearing down the stereotypes and the biases. Absolutely fascinating.

A glorious debunking of gender stereotypes ... A bold and gripping takedown of the sexist mythology baked into biology ... Full of marvellous surprises.

She introduces us to a marvelous zoetrope of animals-not just primates, but venomous intersex moles, hyenas that give birth through their clitoris, filicidal mother meerkats, and postmenopausal orcas.

[An] effervescent exposé ... [A] playful, enlightening tour of the vanguard of evolutionary biology.

If Lucy Cooke's new book about female animals were filmed for TV, it would surely be preceded by a warning that it contains sex and violence right from the start. It also contains humour and a glorious rebuttal of everything we have believed about gender since Charles Darwin got it all wrong ... Gloriously original ... It shows women of all species are even more fascinating than we ever thought.

By analysing numerous animals, this sparkling attack on scientific sexism draws on many scientists - of multiple genders - to correct stereotypes of the active male versus passive female.

A charming mix of wit and scientific analysis... Aside from knocking males off their evolutionary perch and empowering women, this book can inspire the LGBTQ community, as it's clear that their identities and lives are reflected across the natural world.

This book is not just hilarious,
but properly important, laying
out how Victorian views on
gender shaped evolutionary
biology and caused the female
of the species to be overlooked
and misunderstood by the
scientific establishment. You'll
never look at a hyena in the
same way again.

I loved this novel about two kids setting up a computer games company. What fascinated me is it's not about a romantic relationship but friendship.

Gets at so much about work, love and storytelling. It's a book that spawns great conversations

You needn't be a gamer to be charmed by this immersive tale of friendship, creativity and life's messy wonders

I cannot recommend it highly enough

When was the last time I read a book that surrounded me like this? . . . I'm blown away

I love it so much. So so much

You'll be sobbing behind your Celine sunnies

Utterly absorbing

An artfully balanced novel - charming but never saccharine. The world Zevin has created is textured, expansive and, just like those built by her characters, playful

This book is impossibly good-one of the best books I've ever read in my entire life. I press it into people's hands with a demented kind of urgency. 'Yeah, yeah, I don't care about video games either. I promise you'll love it.' And everybody does. How did Gabrielle Zevin write such a perfect novel about friendship? I mean, really. How? In any case, she did, and it's a treasure

Tremendous new novel about art, friendship and gaming . . . a literary blockbuster destined to be filed in the Great American Novel category

"Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" is actually a novel about friendship . . . a creative partnership as intense as a marriage . . . draws any curious reader into the pioneering days of a vast entertainment industry too often scorned by bookworms. And with the depth and sensitivity of a fine fiction writer, Zevin argues for the abiding appeal of the flickering screen

A brilliant story about life's most challenging puzzles: friendship, family, love, loss. By turns funny, poignant, wistful, and occasionally devastating

The sort of book that comes around once in a decade - a magnificent feat of storytelling. It is a book about the intersection between love and friendship, work and vocation, and the impossible and relentless pull of our own west-bound destinies

Sam and Sadie's relationship is pure wizardry; it's deep and complex, transcending anything we might call a love story. Whether you care about video games or not is beside the point. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the novel you've been waiting to read

I feel completely changed by this book from Gabrielle Zevin. It's a book about love - about friendship, but really it transcends the borders of storytelling. My heart ached when I finished it. Truly unforgettable

The perfect engrossing holiday read...beautiful and heartbreaking

Zevin's delight in her characters, their qualities, and their projects sprinkles a layer of fairy dust over the whole enterprise. Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.

A one-of-a-kind achievement

A particularly memorable and compelling kind of love story... [a] nuanced depiction of human connection over 30 years that will have you blinking back tears behind your sunglasses

dazzling and intricately imagined

Zevin's writing is like being put under a spell. She's kind of magical.

Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.

exhilarating

engrossing

delightful and absorbing . . . expansive and entertaining

The go-to for your next hit of Nineties nostalgia; if you ever spent too long playing Donkey Kong, this one's for you

This is a boy meets girl story that is never a romance - though it is romantic . . . Their relationship is a joining of minds and of worlds that is both purer and sweeter than any base physical attraction

Big-hearted, generous, intelligent and open to the complexities of life

A novel that treasures the act of play and holds it sacred . . . the world of video games and video game development is just the landscape in which life plays out . . . Tomorrow is about love, above all things

Delightful and absorbing

Teenagers of the 21st century are as likely to bond over video games as they are rock music or movies. Gabrielle Zevin's exhilarating, timely and emotive book is perhaps the first novel to truly get to grips with what this means

Exhilarating... this is refreshingly original

It is the imaginary world of a game, a world Zevin describes with the addict's ardour, which forms a universe even the sturdiest parent or antediluvian book-lover will be enticed into.

Friendship, love, loyalty, violence in America and the magic of invented worlds. Gorgeous

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a special book -- one that transports readers fully, as games do their players, into its immaculately crafted world

Woven throughout are meditations on originality, appropriation, the similarities between video games and other forms of art, the liberating possibilities of inhabiting a virtual world, and the ways in which platonic love can be deeper and more rewarding - especially in the context of a creative partnership - than romance.

Zevin probes at many of the themes that energize video games as a medium: their narrative depth, their therapeutic value, their casual violence, their toxic industry. And the possibility of living a better life in a virtual world

Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... whose fates I consistently worried about when I occasionally had to put the book aside.

[An] engrossing, delightful novel... Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... [Tomorrow] is rich with characters whose intertwined fates power the narrative

This book, with its respect for craft-the craft of love and games, or loving games-will remind you of how abundant one life is, how lucky we are to keep each other in our memories forever.

[I] raced through this pure wonder of a book in a few days

A 2022 book that everyone should read

A must-read

Anyone who reads Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow can't stop talking about it

Utterly beautiful and endlessly hopeful, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a love letter to life, friendship, and creativity

[The] 2022 book that everyone should read

My #1 book to recommend . . . incredible, like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon meets The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. It's about love and friendship and video games

It feels right that the best video game novel out there is by a woman. Her story about the decades-long friendship and partnership between video game designers Sam and Sadie gets at so much about work, love and storytelling. It's a book that spawns great conversations.

In following Sam and Sadie's journey from Massachusetts to California and into the imagined worlds of their games, Zevin writes the most precious kind of love story

Zevin's writing is poetic, the plot is entertaining, moving and gripping and the nods to real life video games make it all feel incredibly real

Reading this is almost like an invitation from Zevin to enter a game...with every scene and moment so carefully constructed. Just brilliant

I loved it

A hugely enjoyable novel about lives and loves mediated by technology

This playful, accomplished novel is a poignant celebration of friendship, love - and gaming

An engrossing coming-of-age story

Epic in scale, with unforgettable characters, it breaks you heart and puts it back together