God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis - Hardcover

"Tom Hickman tells the story of [the penis’] ups and downs with enthusiasm and a mostly straight face in “God’s Doodle”, a biography of what the dust jacket calls man’s “most precious ornament”.
Mr Hickman goes, like so many men have gone before, where the penis takes him, and in the process answers a number of questions. Did Shylock want to castrate Antonio in “The Merchant of Venice”? Possibly. Is ingesting semen harmful? Quite the opposite. Mr Hickman claims it could protect against breast cancer. Where does Viagra get its name? Through the fusion of “virility” and “Niagara”, as in the falls. “God’s Doodle” is a seminal work." (The Economist)

"Hickman has a dry, wry, light-on-his-feet style...enjoyably witty" (Metro)

"The perfect man book, brimming with funny facts" (Antonia Charlesworth Big Issue, North)

"Tom Hickman tells the story of its ups and downs with enthusiasm and a mostly straight face" (The Economist)

Throughout history man has revered his penis as his 'most precious ornament'.

Yet, ambivalently, his penis has always been the source of man's deepest neuroses too. Do women find it, in the erect state, inherently ridiculous? Why can't a man be certain his penis will stand and deliver when he commands? If and when it steadfastly refuses, what can he do to remedy the situation? And then, of course, there's the matter of size...

To possess a penis, Sophocles said, is to be 'chained to a madman'. God's Doodle examines the schizophrenic relationship between man and this madman - and the joint relationship this odd couple has with the female sex.

God's Doodle is the tale of the penis and the ups and downs of history - the macabre and the bloodcurdling, the funny and the sad, distilled from myth, world cultures, religion, literature, science, medicine and contemporary life - all told with mordant wit.