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A new sort of natural-history book, one so racy that it would have made Darwin raise a bushy eyebrow.--Elizabeth Kolbert "New Yorker"
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Thoroughly entertaining... Ireland invites curiosity and opens up new ways of thinking.--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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Sign me up for the Society to Save Slap and Tickle! With humor, thoughtfulness, and cheeky watercolor comics, Perrin Roosevelt Ireland makes the colorful case that sexual diversity is biodiversity, and that protecting how all critters poke the squid is one pleasurable way to get ourselves out of this mess!--Lucy Cooke, author of The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife
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Poking the Squid is a kaleidoscopic tour through the weird and wonderful diversity of animal sex. With juicy illustrations and thoughtful text, Perrin Roosevelt Ireland reminds us that humans occupy a narrow band of all possible experience. Multiplicities, not binaries, are the norm in nature. This book is a celebration of biological diversity and a call to challenge our prior assumptions: Relationships are at the center of all life, but they might not look how you'd expect.--Zoë Schlanger, author of New York Times bestseller The Light Eaters
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Remarkable. Perrin Roosevelt Ireland takes us to the bottom of the matter--and has a blast doing it. Philosophically incisive and incredibly up-to-date on its science.--Eliot Schrefer, author of Queer Ducks
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A deeply researched, politically astute, and brilliantly penetrating (in all senses) work that wildly expands our understanding of the natural world. When you're done blushing, you'll find your mind has been blown.--Peter Kuper, author of Insectopolis
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Ireland's winning debut offers a surprisingly humorous graphic analysis of animals, sex, and how badly science has failed to understand the nuances of gender and sexuality within the animal kingdom... Sharp and accessible.--Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Who wouldn't want to read a comic book for adults about animal sex? . . . Chock full of facts I never knew I was missing, this book is a very rare perfect blend of fascinating and just plain old fun.--Liz Greene "Nautilus"
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Far-ranging and eye-opening... Every page of
Poking the Squid bears fascinating information and gorgeous, often hilarious, watercolor comics that impart wisdom, boost empathy and induce awe all at once.--Linda M. Castellitto, BookPage, starred review
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Underneath all the bumping and grinding is an important message: hetero, homo, solo, whatever your bent, it's all natural. A happy ending!-- "Adventure Journal"
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[A] stunning fact- and story-filled beautifully illustrated new book... I was thrilled.--Marc Bekoff "Psychology Today"
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I'm learning so much that Sir David Attenborough never covered.--Patricia Elzie-Tuttle "All the Books!"
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Remarkably engaging, funny and scientifically rigorous,
Poking the Squid zooms in beautifully on the astonishing diversity of sex and gender in the natural world unveiled in recent decades. Books like these will help catalyze a broader shift in public understanding, replacing older, narrower ideas with a more nuanced, scientifically-accurate, and intellectually adventurous view of life.--Lixing Sun, author of On the Origin of Sex
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Perrin Ireland's book should be taking up the whole damn couch if you ask me. An illustrated, thoroughly researched tome, it shows over and over and over again just how kinky nature gets, dispelling puritanical notions about what is 'natural.' Fuck, yes.--Mira Jacob "Literary Hub"
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This often explicit, always amusing book not only, ahem, exposes readers to the many and varied ways animals have sex, it also explores how the prejudices of human scientists have affected the study of animal (and human) sexuality and gender.--Eileen Gonzalez "Book Riot"
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In delightful watercolor comics of pregnant seahorse dads, spider oral sex, and the four-headed echidna penis, Perrin Roosevelt Ireland takes us on a wild biodiversity ride through queerness, infidelity, consent, divorce, sex change, and even sexual cannibalism in the animal world. Poking the Squid illustrates the splendid diversity of nature's eroticism. For too long, science has prudishly obscured the wildly creative kinkiness of animal sexual behavior. But Poking the Squid celebrates how assumptions about sex are shifting.
Ireland interviews researchers probing the leading edge of animal reproductive biology and, with the help of her cats Ursula and Pudge, brings readers along as she learns the latest discoveries that implode traditional notions of sex roles, relationships, and just who is mounting whom. These researchers are making dolphin vaginal popsicles, retrieving sperm packets from male squid mouths, and documenting dolphin orgies. From the externalized clitoris of the spotted hyena to mating-by-fusion in anglerfish, Poking the Squid draws on decades of feminist and queer theory to show that sexual diversity is biodiversity, and boisterous boinking is only natural.
Ireland reminds us that we humans, from habitat destruction to climate change, impact all of animal life, including their private lives. Yet Earth's sexual ecosystem is filled with joy, resilience, and vitality--a balm to climate grief and a reason to protect all forms of nature's pleasure. And by illuminating and celebrating animal diversity, Poking the Squid invites us to embrace our own.
Review Citations:
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Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2026 (EAN 9781324089049, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
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Publishers Weekly 06/15/2026 (EAN 9781324089049, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
Contributor Bio:Ireland, Perrin Roosevelt
Perrin Roosevelt Ireland is an artist and environmentalist. For a decade, she worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), ultimately as deputy to the executive director. Her artwork has been published in
Discover,
Nature,
Scientific American, and
The Rumpus. She serves on the board of the Roosevelt Institute, was an inaugural Artist in Residence at the New York Aquarium, and is a Banff Graphic Novel Resident. Perrin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her cats (and muses) Ursula and Pudge.
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