Mary Roach
Author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
About the Author
Mary Roach was born and raised in Etna, New Hampshire. She has a BA degree in psychology from Wesleyan University. She spent a few years as a free-lance copy editor before she landed a job at the San Francisco Zoological Society turning out press releases. She then moved on to write humor pieces show more for such periodicals as The New York Times Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated. Her article "How to Win at Germ Warfare" was a National Magazine Award Finalist, in 1995. In 1996, her article on earthquake-proof bamboo houses took the Engineering Journalism Award. She published several books such as Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003) and Packing for Mars (2010). Mary's title Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, made the New York Times Bestseller list in 2016. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Mary Roach
Two-Minute Revelation 2 copies
Bamboo Solution 1 copy
New World Pompeii 1 copy
1996 Sex: No Shortage Yet 1 copy
The Prince and the Pauper 1 copy
Secrets of the Shamans 1 copy
Hollywood Hills 1 copy
Meteorite Hunters 1 copy
Associated Works
There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (1998) — Contributor — 217 copies, 5 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Roach, Mary
- Birthdate
- 1959-03-20
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Wesleyan University (BA ∙ psychology ∙ 1981)
Hanover High School - Occupations
- columnist
copywriter
non-fiction writer - Organizations
- Salon.com
Reader's Digest
San Francisco Zoological Society - Agent
- Erin Lovett (publicist)
Jay Mandel (agent) - Relationships
- Rachles, Ed (husband)
- Short biography
- Mary Roach grew up in a small house in Etna, New Hampshire. She graduated from Wesleyan in 1981, and then moved out to San Francisco s. She spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor before landing a half-time PR job at the SF Zoo. During that time she wrote freelance articles for the local newspaper's Sunday magazine.
Though she mostly focuses on writing books, she writes the occasional magazine piece. These have run in Outside, National Geographic, New Scientist, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine, as well as many others. A 1995 article of herse called "How to Win at Germ Warfare" was a National Magazine Award Finalist, and in 1996, her article on earthquake-proof bamboo houses took the Engineering Journalism Award in the general interest magazine category. Mary Roach also reviews books for The New York Times.
Her first book, Stiff, was an offshoot of a column she wrote for Salon.com. Her other books include Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void.
http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies... - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
- Places of residence
- Etna, New Hampshire, USA
San Francisco, California, USA
Alameda, California, USA
Oakland, California, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- California, USA
Members
Reviews
I always enjoy Mary Roach's books. I love the sardonic humour, and her self-effacing demeanour through the proceedings. I do occasionally find myself wishing she'd dive a bit deeper into the various subjects she investigates, but then again, that's what other books are for, right? Find a topic, then dig deeper.
This one though? Damn. On one hand, it absolute shows what a shockingly intricate machine the body is and how very hard it is to come in later and try and fix or replace bits of it.
On show more the other hand, it's also a nightmare fuel-soaked ride through the many things that can go wrong, either through maturation or misadventure, and the things we've done to try and get around those. I was squirming through both the penis replacement section, as well as the cataract removal section.
Both an eye opening and an eye watering book. show less
This one though? Damn. On one hand, it absolute shows what a shockingly intricate machine the body is and how very hard it is to come in later and try and fix or replace bits of it.
On show more the other hand, it's also a nightmare fuel-soaked ride through the many things that can go wrong, either through maturation or misadventure, and the things we've done to try and get around those. I was squirming through both the penis replacement section, as well as the cataract removal section.
Both an eye opening and an eye watering book. show less
Fascinating, vastly entertaining book about those parts of the space program NASA doesn't like to talk about--how do you poop in space? Has anyone ever had sex in space? How is it that America's first two astronauts were chimps? How bad is space food, and why exactly? Mary Roach writes about this and more with quick wit and inexhaustible curiosity, in many cases tracking down the actual people who did the actual stuff. Anyone who is interested enough in space exploration to read about it show more needs to read this book. Seriously, it's that good. Loses a half point for being a little dated, which is hardly avoidable. Also I'd suggest a different title, as the book really isn't about Mars. show less
I enjoyed this one, but I suppose I have to say, with some regret, that I didn't enjoy it quite as much as her breakthrough, "Stiff", which traced the possible paths that our bodies, not our souls might take after we depart this mortal coil. One of the reasons why is that Stiff's slant-rhyme twin, "Spook", isn't quite as good as its predecessor is that it lacks the delightful element of surprise that made "Stiff" so entertaining: Roach seemed to have started writing "Stiff" with the show more intention of publishing a fairly standard, if fun, book about what happens to people's bodies after they died and then plunged into the deep end of weird without any idea of where she might have been headed. About three hundred pages later, we ended up in plastic surgery practice rooms, disreputable Chinese crematoriums, and early-modern Scottish graveyards, all while reviewing the most unfathomably odd bits of history imaginable. That book wasn't just a revelation to many of its readers; it also seemed to be a revelation of sorts to Mary Roach herself.
But the author's a few books past that one now, and her style's a bit more burnished: she's still funny, but the jokes don't really shock you when they arrive. She seems to know the kind of book she's expected to write, which is, in a sense, okay. There is a lot of interesting stuff in "Spook," from a short history of attempts to weigh the soul to courtroom squabbles over ghosts who might have have changed their wills. Roach takes a trip to India to talk things over with a man who tries to track reincarnations from one village to another, and while she highlights the social utility of this belief, she mostly comes away with the impression that India is both incredibly strange and highly dangerous. It's a shame, then, that Roach, for all of her trouble, only seems to have found two scientists doing real research on what happens to the soul after death. The first, who teaches at the University of North Carolina, is a brilliant polymath attempting to weigh the soul — or at least consciousness — in the same way that other scientists weigh information. The other is a scientist who studies near-death experiences and believes that similarities among them suggest that the brain might go into a sort of "full reboot" mode in the long moments before the body expires. Neither scientist can say what comes after that, of course, which may annoy some of Roach's more scientific-minded readers. (Of course, it must be admitted that the afterlife isn't a particularly scientific subject, which is, of course, part of the fun of "Spook.") But I still found this one highly interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. And that, come to think of it, is exactly what I expect from a book written by Mary Roach. show less
But the author's a few books past that one now, and her style's a bit more burnished: she's still funny, but the jokes don't really shock you when they arrive. She seems to know the kind of book she's expected to write, which is, in a sense, okay. There is a lot of interesting stuff in "Spook," from a short history of attempts to weigh the soul to courtroom squabbles over ghosts who might have have changed their wills. Roach takes a trip to India to talk things over with a man who tries to track reincarnations from one village to another, and while she highlights the social utility of this belief, she mostly comes away with the impression that India is both incredibly strange and highly dangerous. It's a shame, then, that Roach, for all of her trouble, only seems to have found two scientists doing real research on what happens to the soul after death. The first, who teaches at the University of North Carolina, is a brilliant polymath attempting to weigh the soul — or at least consciousness — in the same way that other scientists weigh information. The other is a scientist who studies near-death experiences and believes that similarities among them suggest that the brain might go into a sort of "full reboot" mode in the long moments before the body expires. Neither scientist can say what comes after that, of course, which may annoy some of Roach's more scientific-minded readers. (Of course, it must be admitted that the afterlife isn't a particularly scientific subject, which is, of course, part of the fun of "Spook.") But I still found this one highly interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. And that, come to think of it, is exactly what I expect from a book written by Mary Roach. show less
This was the year of Mary Roach for me: I had always been hesitant about her books - Bonk seemed to flippant, Stiff irreverant and she was altogether too popular - always a sign that a pop science author doesn't know what she or he is talking about.
So I picked up Packing for Mars because one of my friends was insistent that Mary Roach was actually a great author, and by the title it seemed the least likely to offend, and, to be perfectly honest, there needs to be a new law of physics to show more describe the force that over time pulls me in to any book on astronomy.
To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Roach is clearly a scientific writer, rather than a scientist, which is a niche in need of more authors: she writes with a fluidity that is lacking in some popular science books written by scientists, but more than that, she functions in this odd way as an audience surrogate - bringing with her the curiosity (sometimes scatological) of her readers and commenting along the way about her anticipation for meetings, her rationale for her questions and a description of how she finds out the information that she shares. It is a unique authorial voice and one that I enjoyed thoroughly.
The content itself is a complete exploration into the NASA space program - short on hoopla and long on (sometimes scatological) details. Roach is complete, explaining, for instance, every type of food tried, the nutritional assessments, texture and composition of astronaut food, followed up by how it is actually eaten, including concerns about the ability to swallow in space, and which were substantiated and which were not.
Yes, she is a little long on the scatology, but I think that bothers me more than it does the average reader. And while there is a heavy dose of humor, it is mostly witty and tongue-in-cheek, more than gross-out humor. I've been converted: Long live Mary Roach! show less
So I picked up Packing for Mars because one of my friends was insistent that Mary Roach was actually a great author, and by the title it seemed the least likely to offend, and, to be perfectly honest, there needs to be a new law of physics to show more describe the force that over time pulls me in to any book on astronomy.
To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Roach is clearly a scientific writer, rather than a scientist, which is a niche in need of more authors: she writes with a fluidity that is lacking in some popular science books written by scientists, but more than that, she functions in this odd way as an audience surrogate - bringing with her the curiosity (sometimes scatological) of her readers and commenting along the way about her anticipation for meetings, her rationale for her questions and a description of how she finds out the information that she shares. It is a unique authorial voice and one that I enjoyed thoroughly.
The content itself is a complete exploration into the NASA space program - short on hoopla and long on (sometimes scatological) details. Roach is complete, explaining, for instance, every type of food tried, the nutritional assessments, texture and composition of astronaut food, followed up by how it is actually eaten, including concerns about the ability to swallow in space, and which were substantiated and which were not.
Yes, she is a little long on the scatology, but I think that bothers me more than it does the average reader. And while there is a heavy dose of humor, it is mostly witty and tongue-in-cheek, more than gross-out humor. I've been converted: Long live Mary Roach! show less
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