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  • Mary Roach uses a humorous approach to describing the many uses man has made of cadavers, from crash test dummies to the Body Farm. It's good. It's funny. It's informative.

    

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• ― Missmath144 said on Sep 21, 2008 | Add your feedback

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  • This book opened my eyes to the different views on death through history to modern science. A favorite is the story of a scientist's obsession with finding out the weight of the human soul. A must read!

    

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• ― Sable Enabled Blog said on Jul 15, 2009 | Add your feedback

"One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting."—Entertainment Weekly

Stiff 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.

• nonfictioneducationalhumorousforensicsMy favoritesDelightfully Morbiddeathhumor8th Grade Summer Reading 2007Science