Promiscuities, by Naomi Wolf (Vintage, £7.99 in UK)

It may be timely and revelatory and all the rest, but it's still profoundly depressing, this. Naomi Wolf's clear-as-crystal prose delves deep into the nasty places of teenage sexuality and exposes them to the horrible light of objective scrutiny, telling a sorry tale of what it meant to come of age as a woman in 1960s America. Men held all the cards: men made the value judgments; men operated an appalling sexual double standard with mind-boggling ease. Nowadays, if anything, matters have got worse - unless the fact that men now commonly address each other, with something approaching affection, by a certain four-letter word beginning with "c", is evidence of a sea-change in attitudes? Wolf obviously believes that articulating the problem will lead to its eventual solution. I hope she's right.