Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Any Big Bang Theory fans out there? This is the book Sheldon Cooper would have written if he threw the Relationship Agreement out the window and fell in love with Penny instead. Our wonderfully quirky narrator is Don Tillman, a Melbourne genetics professor who decides, at age 39, that it is time to find a wife. He goes about it in a typically methodical manner � drawing up a questionnaire (16 pages, double-sided) designed to evaluate potential partners.

One day his best friend Gene sends Rosie, a psychology doctoral student and part-time bartender, into his office. She is entirely unsuitable for the Wife Project (“You seem quite intelligent for a barmaid,� he marvels, displaying his usual obliviousness to social norms) yet Don, inexplicably, enjoys himself in her company. He also takes it upon himself, as a geneticist, to help her find her real father, a quest that draws them into some terrific comic setups, such as mixing hundreds of cocktails for a university reunion and flying to New York City to obtain surreptitious DNA samples. Hilarious and heartwarming � an utter delight.