In this mirror book, Volk (biology, New York University) reflects on the fact of death, starting with the certainty of his own. He looks at what philosophers and poets have said about it before considering death from a biological sense as a building block of life. Death returns biological entities to their component parts which nurture the growth of new life. He explores the ways in which humans ignore their own mortality or defy it. This side of the mirror is a lovely meditative journey. Now, flip the book over. Author Sagan's topic is the one thing that most of us do to ensure our own continuation, sex. He also discusses it as a biological imperative, using our ape cousins as examples. The legal and social attempts to confine reproduction to certain people and places are a part of Sagan's interest in the topic. He cites Simone de Beauvoir and the Marquis de Sade among many others. His conclusions are not as comforting as those of Volk, perhaps because sex is a much more complicated topic. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)