Catherine Millet is the girl who can't say 'non'. Editor of the highly-regarded Art Press, she has made it her life's work to sleep with as many men as possible (she has always, she says, had a thing about numbers). Millet's previous book was a scholarly study of contemporary art. This one is an equally rigorous account of how, and to some extent why, she has fucked just about every man she has ever met. The book has been a huge success in France, where the revelation that one of the country's pet intellectuals likes to drive around the Bois de Boulogne looking for sex has caused a huge frisson of delighted disgust, not to mention increased sales. It would be rather like Lisa Jardine revealing in immaculate prose that her favourite evening activity was cruising Tilbury docks eyeing up the talent.

The way Millet describes her life – a pretty standard routine of fearsome hard work, smartish parties and the occasional weekend in the country – makes you wonder what you have been missing out on in your own. Millet has only, for instance, to go down into a Metro station for an employee to shove her into a cupboard