From Hanne Blank comes a chewy piece of scholarship—Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality (Beacon)—that puts a spin on the hip-hop catchphrase "no homo," explaining that there was no hetero until social science and pseudo-science invented a need in the middle of the 19th century. Anyone who's done time at a British public school or a progressive women's college can tell you that matters of sexual orientation are not strictly either/or. But this book twirls that “/” with panache, spinning a generous handful of yarns about the stories we tell ourselves about sex, love, and identity.
