A book that puts parents on the naughty step

Non-fiction; Not In Your Genes; The Real Reasons Children Are Like Their Parents; By Oliver James; Penguin/Random House €17.50

Paula Yates with her second daughter, Peaches Geldof Pic:PA inset: Not in your genes

On the thorny issue of parenting, the poet Philip Larkin probably put it the most succinctly and memorably: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad/they may not mean to, but they do.” It’s a tenet that psychologists have long grappled with, and when it comes to untangling the Sphinx riddle of nature vs nurture, they appear none the wiser.

Yet for all their inexorable strides, scientists still haven’t pinpointed the genes that ...