In much the same way she considers cadavers and sex, Mary Roach looks at the interesting history behind our dead. She considers spiritualists, weighing the soul, and other after-death issues.  ( )

In Spook reporter Mary Roach delves into the world of paranormal research to bring to light modern science's tenuous relationship with the afterlife. Like Stiff and Bonk, Roach's writing is peppered with anecdotes and diverting travel stories, although her own voice is far more aggressive towards her subject than her other two publications (born from Roach's own skepticism, no doubt). While Spook is both interesting and entertaining I believe Roach is at her best when she approaches more quantifiable subjects, leaving Spook at the bottom of the Roach-stack. ( )

I found this extremely entertaining. Roach researched all sorts of experiments into attempts to contact dead people--supposed reincarnated people, mediums, attempts to weigh souls departing from the dead, etc. She tries out some of the methods herself and even goes to "medium school," but of course, none of the methods work. My only problem with the book is that, at the beginning, Roach presents it as some sort of evaluation of whether people have souls, when really it is a tour of parapsychology methods and experiments that most people--including those who believe in the afterlife--would dismiss as ridiculous. ( )

Mary Roach has already tackled sex and corpses, now she tackles the afterlife. Spook was actually pretty good in Roach's typical fun but scientific way.

Roach explores reincarnation, whether a soul exists (is it the big toe? or the sperm?), how much a soul weighs (surprisingly a lot of tests to determine this), ectoplasm, mediums, etc. She actually got to speak with Allison Du Bois, who is the basis of the TV series Medium.

I still don't believe quite a bit, and neither did Roach, but I do know that sometimes faith and belief is not based on fact or anything provable. It just is. ( )

The writer's command of the language is superb. Her ability to swing from serious to intelligently flippant and back again without missing a step is amazing. While I did not find her to be "hilarious" as some have advertised, she is truly funny, a genuinely talented writer.

What she is not, in this book at least, is "objective", or at least not as objective as she claims (or perhaps thinks) she is. Yes, there are a thousand flaws to be found in the many areas of pseudoscience she has investigated in this book. And yes, there are certainly a large number of "practitioners" of the various aspects of afterlife exploration she touches on who are frauds, or who are fooling themselves, even if they did not fool her. But it still appears that her membrane of disbelief is not to be broken by any evidence, period. If it is possible that a certain something that seems paranormal MIGHT be caused by radio waves or thunder clouds or acid rain or whatever, then surely ALL such occurrences must be produced that same, mundane and NOT paranormal way.

She says she wants to believe, but either she is not being paid to believe or she simply does not dare.

Still, I LOVE her writing. And her attitude is quite endearing. I thoroughly enjoyed the book even though I could not buy into all of the skeptical conclusions. ( )

Mary Roach looks at the afterlife through the eyes of science, both past & present. It's a tough subject to pin down, as she shows in her typically thorough & funny way. If you read this looking for what actually does happen after you die, you've picked up the wrong book. She says that in her introduction. Yes, she was trying to find out. She interviewed dozens of scientists, read up on more & even went on outings or classes with a few paranormal clubs. The upshot is, no one reliably knows. But her explorations & the facts she turned up makes a wonderful read.Her research seems pretty exhaustive to me. I don't know much about the subject nor do I have a lot of interest. I confess, I bought the book because I enjoy her writing. She has a quirky sense of humor, but doesn't over power me with it. Just flashes it to lighten what could otherwise be a boring subject. How many people want to read about someone going to medium school, after all? Well she did & made it interesting.I can't wait to read her next book "Bonk - the curious coupling of sex & science". After having several kids, I probably know all I need to about sex, but the trip with her should be interesting! ( )

Science delivered comically, what's not to like? ( )

This is absolutely the most humorous and interesting non-fiction I have ever read. Roach's quirky writing style had me laughing out loud and her lay approach to science writing was right at my level. I can't wait to read Bonk! ( )

This book starts with Mary traveling to India to explore reincarnation and ends with attempts to prove the existence of near-death, out-of-body experiences. In between, she tries to find out if science can prove the existence of a soul, goes to medium school, and tries to hear (and capture) EVP voice recordings. All of this is reported with a sense of humor that is unique to Mary Roach. Though I didn’t like this as much as Bonk, it was still quite enjoyable and a great audiobook to listen to (though the accents used by the reader are a little over the top). I won’t tell you what her conclusions are, but I don’t think you’ll be surprised. ( )

I love science but it's hard to find something that both discusses something with a broad scope and interesting subject that also talks at a level that doesn't make me feel like I need to have a dictionary and the internet at my side. Mary Roach manages to accomplish this task with ease. Spook is a relatively open look at varying aspects of 'The Afterlife.' I don't agree with every summation, but Mary does a great job of encouraging making your own decisions and possibly investigating further on your own. Lovely read. ( )

I think this is the same book published as 'Six Feet Over' in the UK, so reviewing here.

This was a vastly entertaining book, looking into literal soul-searching by scientists through history and to the present, including the pseudo and the well-credentialled, their experiments, theories and er, rather interesting equipment.

There were forays into mediumship, delving into ectoplasm (very disgusting), weighing the dying and psychic telephoning: all very fascinating and told with humour & evident, infectious enjoyment by the author. The book frequently made me laugh: the footnotes are not to be missed.

I don't know how much the book would appeal to a believer in these various things, but from a sceptical viewpoint, it was very enjoyable.

"The debunkers are probably right, but they're no fun to visit a graveyard with." Roach may be right about that, but she was certainly fun for this sceptic to take a tour with. ( )

It was okay. Spend your money on Stiff. ( )

This book is definitely worth reading. It's funny and very informative. I just wish there was more in this book that strengthened belief in the afterlife. ( )

I found this one to be on par with Roach's other two titles ("Stiff" and "Bonk"). I've enjoyed all three nearly equally, and while I don't typically read much non-fiction, I do enjoy Roach's humor for the most part. I would agree with the comment of another reader's review that I read which said this book might be more aptly titled something along the lines of "Spirit" or "Soul" or something similar, as opposed to "Spook", which leads the reader to believe there might be more ghost-story &/or spooky type anecdotes in the book, which is not the case. While most of the information in here was interesting, it seems that science continues to struggle to find evidential proof of a soul's existence. ( )

Really, really good book. ( )

Very well-written. Worth reading just for the footnotes. ( )

A light but interesting book on the (non-theological) attempts to determine if the soul exists, if there is an afterlife, and various related paranormal theories.

I was particularly taken by the last chapters, which were academics trying to figure out the physical and physiological stimuli that cause the perception of paranormal experiences - one working with high electromagnetic fields, which can cause hallucinations, and one experimenting with the effects of infrasound, ultra-low-frequency vibrations which we don't hear as such but which set off all sorts of interesting physiological reactions in a subset of people...

A bit hit-and-miss on occasion - a bit less on mediums might have been nice, since there's only so much you - but generally interesting and well-written. Lots of delightful anecdotes, and an engaging editorial tone.

This is a disappointing book, The author adopts a very flip style that is as suspect as the evidence that the believers in extra-sensory phenomena utilize. The author presumes that all evidence of the afterlife is a hoax and then virtually laughs at those who do believe. For those of us who take a middle road on such subjects, you feel that the judge has passed sentence before the trial has begun. Her skepticism is probably right on a majority of the time, I'm just not sure how deserving of roasting her victims are. ( )

Sandwiched between Stiff (her book about cadavers) and Bonk (her book about sex), is Spook, a book about boring. Honestly, there was some of the flavor of Roach's other books, with her typical humor and dry wit interspersed. I just found it bloody hard and tedious to get through. Perhaps it is my own cynical feelings on the afterlife, but I just could not get absorbed the way I was with her other books. Sorry, Mary, I love ya. But this one was a swing and a miss for me. ( )

I didn't like this book as much as Stiff, honestly; it doesn't hit my forensics button, though Roach is still a joy to read. I did find the section on EVPs fascinating, mostly because I'm a big fan of Ghosthunters and the like. Would still follow Roach to the ends of the earth, because lo, she is awesome. ( )

After taking on dead bodies in Stiff, Mary Roach 'tackles the afterlife' in Spook (2005). From reincarnation to séances, ectoplasm to ghostly possession of spell-checkers, Roach visits, researches and often skewers those connected with research into just what it is that happens to us when we die.

I didn't laugh out loud quite as often while reading this as I did with the earlier book, but there were definitely some very humorous moments (usually when Roach expresses her skepticism of the people she's consorting with, many of whom seem a bit, eh, off). Her footnoted asides are also a source of continuing amusement.

Whether it's weighing dying bodies to determine the weight of the soul, or locking people in boxes and exposing them to electromagnetic fields in order to bring on a ghost, Roach's travels and researches make for great stories, and she recounts them well. A good read.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2008/... ( )

Summary: In Spook, Mary Roach sets out to examine what science - both historical and modern - has to tell us about what happens to us after we die. In a series of chapters that read somewhat like extended travelogue-esque magazine articles, she examines a variety of areas of paranormal research, starting with reincarnation and the question of ensoulment, moving through soul weighing, soul visualization, ectoplasm, mediums, electronic communication with ghosts (i.e. voices of ghosts appearing on tape recordings), some non-paranormal explanations for paranormal phenomena (i.e. infrasound), a legal case in which instructions from a ghost led a family to a revised version of their father's will, and current research into near-death experiences.

Review: Mary Roach writes this book with a bias - for a subject as open to personal interpretation as life after death, it's impossible not to. However she's up-front about her biases: she's an agnostic, but tending to lean more towards the skeptical side. To quote: "I wasn't saying these things [biblical miracles] didn't happen. I was just saying I'd feel better with some proof." I trust it's not a huge spoiler to say that she doesn't find proof of anything one way or another. However, she sets out to examine the currently available scientific evidence (or lack thereof) regarding what happens to our us-ness after we die, and offers her interpretation as to whether or not its credible. As any scientist will know, it is damn near impossible to prove a negative: finding no evidence for something is NOT the same as finding evidence against it. Therefore, her ultimate conclusion is: maybe? She doesn't turn up anything she considers to be a smoking-gun example that our consciousness exists after death, but there remain things that she can't quite explain away, either.

Roach clearly set out to write a book with as popular of an appeal as possible; however, by sheer dint of her subject matter and inherent personal bias, she's already alienated a large chunk of her potential audience. Anyone who already "knows" what happens to people after they die is going to be disappointed - hard-line atheists will take issue with the fact that she presupposes the existance of a soul, and will dismiss the rest as twaddle and delusion; hard-line theists of every flavor will be offended that her fall-back position is to dismiss the supernatural/religious aspect out of hand. Luckily for me, I fall smack in the middle, happily in line with Roach's viewpoint: it's possible, although I think it's unlikely... but either way, where's the proof? Roach - and I - tend to view science as the best possible way of getting that proof, but when the subject is one that modern science has by-and-large declared ineffable, we're left looking at the fringe cases, where every piece of evidence is going to be colored by personal interpretation.

Okay, philosophical ramblings aside, I mostly enjoyed this book. I thought the chapters on modern paranormal research were the most interesting, while the material covered in the historical chapters have been done better in other books, and tended to drag on. Similarly, I was more interested in the chapters that looked for non-paranormal explanations for hauntings - infrasound triggering feelings of unease, fear, and the flight-or-fight response; tiny electromagnetic pulses that mimic temporal lobe epilepsy producing the feeling of being surrounded by invisible people - and less interested in the chapters that presupposed paranormal phenomena to be real, and went looking for causes. Overall, though, I found it to be interesting, easy, and frequently funny (at one point during a class on becoming a medium, Roach strikes out for the bar, "to commune with spirits I know how to relate to"), although it is ultimately (and unsurprisingly) somewhat light when it comes to answering the questions it set out to ask. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: If you've already made your mind up beyond a shadow of a doubt about the afterlife (or are saying "what afterlife?), this book is probably not for you. If you don't know what happens after we die, aren't sure, or don't think it's possible to know, this book is not going to provide you with any answers, or even any strong hints, but it will provide you with plenty of interesting tidbits about the sometimes ingenious, sometimes extremely silly ways that scientists are going about trying to find out. ( )

This is my second Mary Roach book, the first being STIFF which I found to be a really fascinating look into the curious lives of human cadavers.

This one is also captivating; just really well researched. I admire her work ethic by "spanning the globe" to bring us information about a topic that everyone has a curiosity about. Great sense of humor, too. I always enjoy subject matter that while teetering on being textbooky, can deliver the goods with laughs. I look forward to more of her work. ( )

Mary Roach sets out to prove or disprove scientifically the existence of the
human soul and what happens to it (if it exists) after we die. Her research
takes her from science labs to the slums of India, and she has put together
an exhaustive study of everything she could find in history of scientific
experiments geared to prove the existence of an afterlife. But the book is
far from dry and scientific. Ms. Roach writes with great wit and I enjoyed
this volume a great deal. The only real complaint I have about it is her
liberal and distracting use of footnotes. There's one on nearly every other
page and they often go off on tangents that have little to do with the
subject at hand. In that respect, I think she is a bit enamored of her own
wit, and the book needed a better editor, I think, than it obviously had.
Still, it is definitely worth the read. I'll give it a 4. ( )

I think Mary Roach is a hilarious writer. Ever since I read Stiff, I've been waiting in anticipation for her next book. In Spook Roach jumps from the physical to the metaphysical. Whereas Stiff examined the ultimate fate of cadavers, Spook looks to the soul. In particular, the book examines scientists' efforts to to offer measurable proof of the existence of the soul, and their attempts to understand what happens to immaterial parts of personhood after death. To give a full picture of these efforts Roach's research takes her across cultures and continents. She brings us the story of the woman who could vomit large quantities of fabric on demand in the name of talking to the dead. She writes of doctors who attached dying consumptives to giant scales. As with her other work, Spook is infused with Roach's sense of humor and her clear fascination with the bizarre. The stranger it gets, the happier Roach seems to be. This book is, without question, a rollicking good read. Beyond pure enjoyment, Roach book also shows just how enmeshed certain sectors of the scientific community have become, in the past two centuries, in matters of belief. The very premise of this book, and what unifies these stories, is an attempt to merge seemingly incompatible thought systems. Ever since the arguments in Kansas and the Dover, PA school board case, the ability, and the desirability of merging these two thought systems in the name of education has become an issue of political significance. Roach's study suggests that scientists and lay people have been involved in efforts to merge the physical and metaphysical arts. It shows that at significant points in the past, large numbers of people have been drawn to efforts to apply science to faith; see, for example, her chapter on spiritualism. The experts involved, however, (scientists, doctors, etc.) have ususally been marginal figures, on the fringes of their fields, or at least respected only in their work outside of the supernatural. Obviously, the scientific question of the afterlife is never going to create the firestorm generated by evolution/creationism/intelligent design. The general consensus remains that afterlife is a matter of faith, not science. Public schools have little need or desire to teach about the fate of the soul. That is the work of clerics and philosophers. But here lies the great irony. It is precisely because there is such widespread agreement in the western world on the division of body and soul, that attempts to bring science to bear of matters of the spirit and the immortal may be able to proceed without the criticism and argument generated by by similar battles in which the divisions seem less clear. ( )