In What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire, critically acclaimed journalist Daniel Bergne disseminates the latest scientific research and paints an unprecedented portrait of female lust: the triggers, the fantasies, the mind-body connection (and disconnection), the reasons behind the loss of libido, and, most revelatory, that this loss is not inevitable.Bergner asks: Are women actually the less monogamous gender? Do women really crave intimacy and emo...

"Girded with scientific data about the nature of sexual identity . . . a foray into extreme passion, in quest of the human soul." — O, The Oprah MagazineHow do we come to be who we are sexually? How do we cope with the forces of desire? How can we understand the relationship between the transcendent and the physical, between the wish for love and the anarchy of the erotic?Daniel Bergner looks for answers in the stories of four peop...

An Los Angeles Times Best Book 2003A chilling, beautifully written narrative of African warSierra Leone is the world's most war-ravaged country. There, in a West African landscape of spectacular beauty, rampaging soldiers--many not yet in their teens--have made a custom of hacking off the hands of their victims, then letting them live as the ultimate emblem of terror. The country is so anarchic and so desperate that, forty years after independence, i...

Jacob is a man with an overwhelming attraction to female feet. The Baroness is a clothing designer and evangelical sadist. Roy is a wedding band singer entranced by his step daughter. Ron and Laura are simply in love - only Laura lost both her legs in a car accident, and Ron is beguiled by a beauty many would be blind to.How do we deal with desire? Our own, and the desires of others? How do we comprehend desires that are extreme, or unacceptable? And how do those who have them, liv...

“A profound and powerful work of essential reporting." —The New York Times Book ReviewAn important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselvesIn the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon w...

In this moving and unforgettable narrative journalist Daniel Bergner travels into the heart of Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by war. This is the story of the people he encounters in a realm of fire and jungle as they rebuild their lives: Lamin, who lost his hands to save his daughter; Komba, child soldier and sometime cannibal; Neall Ellis, the mercenary pilot with a conscience; Valentine Strasser the embittered ex-dictator; and the Western outsiders trying to save a land of startling...

Never before had Daniel Bergner seen a spectacle as bizarre as the one he had come to watch that Sunday in October. Murderers, rapists, and armed robbers were competing in the annual rodeo at Angola, the grim maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana. The convicts, sentenced to life without parole, were thrown, trampled, and gored by bucking bulls and broncos before thousands of cheering spectators. But amid the brutality of this gladiatorial spectacle Bergner caught surprising glimpses o...

In this headline-making book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women's desire on its head. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with renowned behavioural scientists, sexologists, psychologists and everyday women, Daniel Bergner asks:- Do women really crave intimacy and emotional connection?- Are women more disposed to sex with strangers or multiple partners than either science or society have ever let on?- And is 'the fairer sex' actu...

An important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselvesIn the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don...

When it comes to sex, common wisdom holds that men roam while women crave closeness and commitment. But in this provocative, headline-making book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women's arousal and desire inside out. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with renowned behavioral scientists, sexologists, psychologists, and everyday women, he forces us to reconsider long-held notions about female sexuality.This bold and captivating journey into the wo...

Whether it's in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive—but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive?In his bold new work, prominent biological theorist Robert Trivers unflinchingly argues that self-decep...

Celebrated sex advice columnist and founder of the Emmy-winning It Gets Better campaign, Dan Savage delivers “powerful messages for both the head and heart” (Entertainment Weekly)From the moment he began writing his syndicated sex-advice column, Savage Love, Dan Savage has never been shy about expressing his opinion on controversial topics—political or otherwise. In the height of his activism, he addresses issues ranging from parenting and the gay agenda t...