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Loading... Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadaversby Mary Roach
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Really interesting stuff not too dryly written. (  )donchaknow | Jul 2, 2009 |   Mary Roach covers in graphic detail what happens to our bodies postmortem. This book travels through scientific history. The reader learns about the uses and sometimes unknowing contributions our cadavers have made over the centuries from the French guillotines to human composting. She covers the many physical and to some, quite disgusting changes our bodies go through after death. Because I'am in the medical field and at times I do come in contact with the dead, this book to me was both informative and respectful. The humor Roach placed in the book was not hilariously side splitting as some say, but light and affective. Let's face it, humor can break up a morbid subject into something more tolerable to face. The only thing in this book that disturbed me was the descriptions of live animal experimentation in the name of science. All and all Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers was a well researched and interesting read. ( )curlysue | Jun 27, 2009 | A hilarious read about cadavers - what's not to like? (maybe everything if you're the squeamish type. I was mainly okay until she started talking about animal head transplants) mangochris | Jun 10, 2009 | For such a morbid subject, the author has a quirky writing style punctuated by humor, odd juxtapositions, and a liberal use of footnotes. Of course, after finishing the book, I can't help but think that there might not be any other way to approach the subject, as what's death without a little laughter? There are a lot of interesting things cadavers are made to do aside from dissection labs, organ donation, or just plain being buried...(more) syaffolee | Jun 2, 2009 | This is the type of book I will almost always pick up if I have the chance, a funny book about an odd science topic. It was well-written, funny, in a dreadfully morbid way and I learned somethings. But it was not a good book to pick up and read through quickly. There was just too much of it. Dead bodies are fine for a chapter or two, but after half of the book I was done, though the writer wasn't. (  )readermom | May 27, 2009 | 0.024 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0393324826, Paperback)"One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting."—Entertainment WeeklyStiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way. In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries—from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:00 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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