Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
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Book Reviews of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Book Review: Great Audio Book--Just Not During Lunch!
Summary: 5 Stars
You can imagine what a surreal experience it was to listen to this book on CD while on a house cleaning job...scraping goo off the stove while listing to the description of body putrification after death.
Yep, I, too, laughed out loud at the writer's wry humor.
I did have to stop listening while eating my lunch in the car while driving. I did want to keep it down, after all.
I just wanted to comment on the Audio Book reader: very good choice. She handles the dry humor well, with the right intonation and inflection. I good story can be ruined by a bad reader, and Shelly Frasier is excellent.
If you are in the habit of listening to books on the drive home, get this one for sure. Your drive will go quickly.
Book Review: Worthwhile but still....Fun
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't think of myself as particularly squeamish, but Mary Roach can lean in and explore sights that would make me lose my breakfast lunch and dinner. Yet just as a description grows too thoroughly distressing, the author's light, humorous voice comes along to save the reader. Her focus shifts ever so slightly -- perhaps from a dead body to a live person's reaction (Poor Ron, who will never eat Rice Krispies again) so we don't have to take the step back.
She's funny, and as she points out, corpses can be pretty humorous objects, but astoundingly, there is no sense of disrespect for the dead. A lot of worthwhile material is covered and she makes good points, but there's no sense of pontificating or horror. She's a good guide for the journey.
Book Review: Highly informative
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an amazing compilation of all the facts you could ever want about death and what happens thereafter. The book gives a new perspective to the subject and helps the reader understand the mechanical aspects of being deceased.
Having lost both parents recently and having donated my father's body, it was really fascinating to find out the adventures he may have gone on afterwards and it helped me come to terms with my mother's cremains.
It's great to find a book that deals with these touchy subjects without resorting to the easy out of superstition and religious belief systems.
If text books were written in this style, we'd all have enjoyed high school and actually learned the subject matter.
Book Review: Unusual and good book
Summary: 5 Stars
I was stuck at the airport during a storm. I'd read everything I'd brought with me and done all the work in my briefcase. I wandered into the bookshop and picked up Stiff mainly because it wasn't romance novel and I hadn't read it before. Not the best way to select a book, but boy did I luck out.Stiff is outstanding. Roach takes a potentially disturbing subject and treats it with intelligence, sensitivity, and humor. I learned a tremendous amount about current and historical subjects. As an added bonus, I met new people. When you sit in an airport or in a plane reading a book about cadavers, people either scoot away from you or ask you about the book. I'm really happy I bought this book and I highly recommend it.
Book Review: From a medical POV
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my favorite books - as someone who has done a cadaver discection, who works in the health care profession, and as someone who is planning to donate their body to science, this was a witty, eye opening, and educational book - AND made me laugh out loud on occasion. I found myself wanting to share all the interesting things I was learning while reading this book with anyone who happened to be in the vicinity while I was reading. I never knew a book on this subject could be so interesting and such an engaging read. I have recommended this book to many people - those in the medical field and those who are not. Perfect book to read either all the way through, or to pick up once in awhile and come back to.