Straight

An incisive, entertainingly written book on history of the concept of “heterosexuality”, which, as it turns out, was a term invented in the late 1800s and only picked up for reals in the early part of the 20th century. The author tends to go on tangents a bit and the introduction is a little self-absorbed, but it provides a nice overview of how male-female couplings evolved as they went from being “just the relationships everyone has” to “heterosexuality”. A fairly short book, as it says, it clocks in at slightly over 200 pages, a good third of that is endnotes and bibliography. It's well-researched, and thoughtful– she unpacks the common sense notions that “everyone knows” about the way orientation is talked and thought about, firmly grounding everything she in history and science.