Make Love Like a Prairie Vole, By Andrew G Marshall

In Valentine's week, real-life marital therapist Andrew G Marshall kicks romantic fantasies into touch with a practical six-step programme to "rekindle desire" and "turn routine sex into sensuous love making".

Prairie voles, in case you were wondering, are the Romeos and Juliets of the animal kingdom. Not only do these Mid-Western rodents pair for life. They spend hours cuddling and grooming in their burrows.

Forget Tantric techniques and pornographic impossibilities, claims Marshall, ramp up the nuzzling, and stop in the middle of love-making "to have tea and talk". Prairie voles are constant creatures. Love rats, according to Marshall, are best confined between the covers of a good book.