Edward Dolnick provides a highly illuminating, slightly horrifying history of the quest to discover where exactly babies come from in The Seeds of Life. The actual answer as we understand it today was not nailed down until well into the 19th century so there is plenty of history and many stories of false trails for Dolnick to share. Included we have the somewhat gruesome story of an anatomist who dissected his own father and brother in his quest to know more, a brilliant experimentalist who sewed boxers for frogs to prove something significant about semen and many more similarly interesting tales. I would recommend it for anyone looking for an interesting history of science.
