Y: The Descent of Men [Hardcover]

If you haven't read 'the language of the genes' by the same author then I thoroughly recommend it. 'The language of the genes' is wider ranging but more tight and lucid than this one and is an undoubted 5 star book.

Having said that Y is a cracking read which takes the author's ruminations on the nature of masculinity way beyond his specialist area of genetics.

Steve Jones has a real talent for rendering fairly difficult scientific concepts both interesting and digestible, even for a science dullard like myself.

The book contains a leg crossing chapter on circumcision (which he contends, rather controversially, is a form of ritualised child abuse) as well as castration and other forms of mutilation. The hard facts about erection are revealed, as well as discussions of new research into sexual behaviour, penis size and sperm donation.

Aside from the welter of sexual statistics from the animal kingdom, eg the Zebra who emits half a gallon of sperm in a single ejaculation, Jones contextualises human sexual behaviour and anatomy by comparing us with our animal cousins and draws some surprising conclusions about the innate sexual nature of humankind.

This book is really the antidote to the kind of woolly 'Men are from...' type pop-psyche nonsense that abounds these days. Jones presents the facts as he sees them based on current research and avoids drawing spurious conclusions. His discussion of the genetic basis of Homosexuality seems to end with a kind of 'but we're still not really certain at the moment'.

Of course Steve Jones is a man and so am I so there is an inevitable bias, but this seems like an exceptionally even handed discussion of masculinity, if Jones isn't certain then he leaves the questions open, and the book is all better for it. Y doesn't contain the kind of radical central thesis that propels a book to the top of the bestseller lists, but for those interested in a readable account of the research as it stands it is indespensible.

If I could remember things better, this book would have provided me no end of factoids to share at drinks parties. The topic is certainly interesting, but the book fails to hang together with a strong theme. There are too many detours to zoological curiosities, and not enough scientific summation and correlation to the book's title. Some zebras may produce half a gallon of semen and some fruitflies only a single cell, but how is this interesting and relevant to the topic of human male ejaculation? Additionally, in an attempt to be humourous and upbeat the author uses far too many clever phrases, which pile up on each other until the point of the paragraph is completely lost. My book group gives this one a thumbs-down.

I've always liked Steve Jones for his enthusiasm and punditry around science. He's done more than anyone to make genetics and biology seem an interesting thing to be involved in, and something worth doing really well.

But this book missed every task it set itself. It wasn't readable, it didn't explain things well, and didn't work as an "update" of Darwin's book the Descent of Man The Descent of Man: Selection in Relation to Sex (Penguin Classics).

The worst thing is the style. Jones wants to make science "readable". He thinks that that means plastering "non-scientific" language and metaphors all over it, and jumping from subject to subject as quickly as possible, so we don't get bored.

That doesn't make the book readable - it makes it almost completely unreadable.

For instance, on p.23, he jumps from one paragraph about parasites and the leprosy bacillus, and starts the next one as follows: "Australian males are a model of virility, but the average native has a rather small version of what makes him what he is." Huh? The "model of virility" bit refers to a cliche about Australian men, so is he saying Australian men have small penises? Or if he's talking about "natives", does he mean Aborigines?

No, the next sentence starts "Kangaroos split from our own ancestors..." so he's talking about Australian animal species and, it turns out, their Y chromosomes. Why didn't he just say so in the first place?

He over-uses a couple of adjectives designed to jolly us along, particularly "erotic" "genetical" and "genital". He slaps them all over the place, treating us to sentences like: "Perhaps Homo sapiens once danced to the same erotic tune as did his relatives, but it is hard to work out what the melody might have been and whether it has much relevance to the genetical gavottes of today."

There's some sort of random chapter structure with clever-clever titles that don't tell you what they're about. This throws up some decent stuff - mostly when he's outside his home turf of genetics. The chapter on circumcision is actually interesting, and includes castration too.

The genetical chapters are the pits, though. You cannot do genetics in a popular science book without diagrams - even if you ARE Prof Steve Jones.

I came away with the idea that the ageing and changing of DNA was telling scientists all sorts of things, but with very little idea what those things are. The next time my daughter came to me with GCSE work to look at, I should have been armed with facts and insights to push us both onwards - instead I was still anxiously checking the pictures in her crib notes.

The book has a bizarre subtext in which it is supposed to be an "update" of Darwin's Descent of Man. Yet it only mentions the Darwin book a couple of times, quoting some chunk or other that makes the older book seem completely irrelevant.

Other reviewers clearly wanted this to be an accessible book that explains and discusses manhood from a scientific point of view, and counters the overwhelming profusion of New Age bollocks.

I wish it were that book, because we really need it. Instead Jones gives us a few interesting ideas cobbled together and encrusted with the kind of writing that makes it virtually indistinguishable from those other books.

I give it a star for the things it doesn't do too badly, and because Prof Jones' heart is, as always, in exactly the right place. It's a missed opportunity though.