…badly made.

Which is why, recently presented with these two books for review, I will probably start with the latter:

• How S*x Works, by Dr. Sharon Moalem. From the publisher [typos supplied by JES intentionally, to ward off The Wrong Sort of Internet traffic]:
  

  Why are women biologically driven to find Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome?
  Can more s*x help ensure a safe pregnancy?
  What effect does p0rn0gr@phy have on a man’s fert!l!ty?

  In this compelling follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Survival of the Sickest, Dr. Sharon Moalem takes us on a trip from prehistory to the forefront of cutting-edge medical research, and through a bedroom or two, to tell the story of how human s*xuality has developed over time. How S*x Works challenges common perceptions about our bodies and provides astonishing discoveries from the frontiers of science as it traces the transformation of s*x across species and through time to its current role in human societies…

• Coop, by Michael Perry. From the publisher:

In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of Truck: A Love Story gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country.

Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood — his city-bred parents took in more than a hundred foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm — for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father…

Well, they also say that postponement toughens the soul. Something like that, anyhow. Don’t put off till tomorrow, so forth and so on. “They” –whoever they are — must be a barrel of laughs at a party.

P.S. Seriously? I’d more likely buy Coop anyway — even though I haven’t read either one yet. (And it’s got nothing to do with virtue, God knows.)