The Birth of the Pill

The story of the extraordinary characters behind the invention of the contraceptive Pill

Jonathan Eig, a former senior special reporter at the Wall Street Journal, is the author of three highly acclaimed books, two of which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. His first book, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (Simon & Schuster, 2005), won the Casey Award for best baseball book of 2005; his second book, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season (Simon & Schuster, 2007), was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated, and The Washington Post. In his third book, Get Capone (Simon & Schuster, 2010), Eig discovered thousands of pages of new material on Capone, affirming his trustworthy reporting reputation in what The New York Times called a "multifaceted portrait," a "gore-spattered thriller," and "as much a dark history of urban America between the world wars as it is another mobster's life story." And in The Birth of the Pill, Eig again tackles an enormous volume of unexamined personal correspondence in this original and richly-textured narrative.

Chapter - 1: A Winter Night Chapter - 2: A Short History of Sex Chapter - 3: Spontaneous Ovulations Chapter - 4: A Go-To-Hell Look Chapter - 5: Lover and Fighter Chapter - 6: Rabbit Tests Chapter - 7: 'I'm A Sexologist' Chapter - 8: The Socialite and the Sex Maniac Chapter - 9: A Shotgun Question Chapter - 10: Rock's Rebound Chapter - 11: What Makes a Rooster Crow? Chapter - 12: A Test in Disguise Chapter - 12: Cabeza de Negro Chapter - 14: The Road to Shrewsbury Chapter - 15: 'Weary and Depressed' Chapter - 16: The Trouble with Women Chapter - 17: A San Juan Weekend Chapter - 18: The Women of the Asylum Chapter - 19: John Rock's Hard Place Chapter - 20: As Easy as Aspirin Chapter - 21: A Deadline to Meet Chapter - 22: 'The Miracle Tablet Maybe' Chapter - 23: Hope to the Hopeless Chapter - 24: Trials Chapter - 25: 'Papa Pincus's Pink Pills for Planned Parenthood' Chapter - 26: Jack Searle's Big Bet Chapter - 27: The Birth of the Pill Chapter - 28: 'Believed to Have Magical Powers' Chapter - 29: The Double Effect Chapter - 30: La Senora de las Pastillas Chapter - 31: An Unlikely Pitch Man Chapter - 32: 'A Whole New Bag of Beans' Chapter - 33: The Climax Section - i: Epilogue Acknowledgements - ii: Acknowledgements Section - iii: Notes Section - iv: Selected Bibliography Index - v: Index