Strategies of Sex

About the Book

Strategies of Sex includes verses by a physician-scientist member of the National Academy of Sciences that are a celebration of the diversity of arrangements (often bizarre) that ensure the propagation of species, from Anableps to surgeonfish. The result is somewhere between Cole Porter (“bees do it”) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (“let me count the ways..”) with a touch of Ogden Nash. Pudgy moorhens, hairy-legged fruit flies, doubly endowed four-eyed fish – whatever turns you on – they are all here, immortalized with grace and style. The inanities of Homo sapiens are treated elsewhere in the book, which concludes with several serious poems.

About the Author

Edwin Dennis Kilbourne, M.D. is an internationally recognized research scientist who has made significant contributions to the study and prevention of influenza and other human virus diseases. He is a member of The National Academy of Sciences and The American Philosophical Society. Dr. Kilbourne has also had a life-long interest in non-scientific writing and has published humorous verses and essays in magazines for the general public. These have been inspired by whimsical news items from the press – most of them dealing with the often bizarre mating habits of sub-human species. They all meet together in Strategies of Sex.