This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Carol Tavris to discuss two wide-ranging works of biology that cast fascinating light on our understanding of sexual behaviour and gender identity throughout the animal and human world. And James Waddell explores a “bibliobiography” by a Shakespeare scholar that digs deep into centuries of books and their readers - from “shelfies” to book burning to the historical precedent for Jilly Cooper’s Riders.

'Different: Gender through the eyes of a primatologist’ by Frans de Waal

‘Bitch: A revolutionary guide to sex, evolution and the female animal’ by Lucy Cooke

‘Portable Magic: A history of books and their readers’ by Emma Smith

Produced by Sophia Franklin

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