By de Groot, Jerome THE ACT OF LOVE by Howard Jacobson Cape, Pounds 17.99, pp.306 ISBN 9780224086097 Pounds 14.39 (plus Pounds 2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 From 'Readers' Wives' to Molly Bloom, the idea of a man somehow sharing his loved one sexually is a common and complex one.

Few instincts are so strong or so widely shared as the urge to condemn other people for their sexual idiosyncrasies.