A manual that may satisfy even Gen Z

If you're too young to have read David Reuben’s 1969 bestseller Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask and you haven't got around to the Kama Sutra, then Shobhaa Dé's latest book might be of interest. It’s called The Sensual Self: Explorations of Love, Sex & Romance. Last week she asked her publisher to send me a copy and I spent the next few days reading it.

- Karan Thapar

I would describe it as a manual on how to make love and how not to, the different ways of attempting it and how to enhance your pleasure. Some chapters could be inappropriate for a family newspaper. But there’s a lot that’s just fun.

Not surprisingly, Shobhaa is rather concerned about how women are treated. “Women need to feel valued, respected and adored!” she writes. “Men take it for granted that the woman who has agreed to sleep with them, worships the ground they walk on and is doing so out of gratitude. She is expected to feel grateful for having been picked up over many rivals waiting to warm this man’s bed.”