Mary Roach Archives - Introverted Reader

Gulp by Mary Roach: Book Review

Mary Roach has a gift for making science accessible and--dare I say it?--even funny. In this book, she tackles the digestive system. Covering topics ranging from thorough chewing (as in 700+ chews for One. Freaking. Bite.) to the miraculous properties of spit, from being eaten alive to the possibility (or not) of chewing your way out if you are, from "The alimentary canal as criminal accomplice" to *ahem* flatus, and ending up with bacterial transplants to treat intractable digestive ailments, this book asks everything you might possibly have ever wanted to know on the topic but were afraid to ask. I have a pretty juvenile sense of humor, so all of the fart jokes, and spit jokes, and *ahem* "criminal accomplice" jokes had me at least giggling. In the two chapters devoted to flatulence, I was quite honestly laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Not that it was necessarily that funny but because "Oh my gosh, I can't believe she went there. And there. And there!" I'm almost ashamed of myself. Almost. Luckily my husband and I have the same sense of humor so he just kept playing whatever game on his phone as I laughed myself silly and waited for me to catch my breath and report so he could share in the joke too. I've worked in healthcare for years, so I've developed a pretty strong stomach (though I'm not a nurse or CNA and haven't ever had to wade into the trenches, so to speak), so nothing in here bothered me. That will obviously not be the case for all of you. If you can stomach it (heehee!), I do recommend this. If it doesn't seem to be your kind of thing, it's probably not. Read an excerpt. Find author Mary Roach on her website and Twitter.…

Stiff by Mary Roach: Book Review

Chalk this up to a win for the GoodReads friends. I would never have picked this up on my own. A book about cadavers? How morbid can you be? Not to mention the heebie-jeebies that would be sure to haunt me throughout the book. But so many people have read this and raved about it that I decided to go ahead and give it a try. It's somehow hilarious. But not disrespectful. And odd. And hilarious. And hard to describe. With chapters ranging from human decay, to body snatching, live burial, and new ways to "dispose" of human remains, I never realized that there were so many aspects of death to think about. I can't say that I was completely comfortable with all the topics covered (I really don't need to know exactly what happens to a decomposing body), but neither did anything give me too bad a case of the heebie jeebies. I was surprised by how interesting I found most of the topics to be. There's a lot of history, anecdotes, trivia, and science crammed into this book. If you think you can handle it, and most people probably can, I recommend this for an upfront look at a topic most of us avoid. Read an excerpt. Find author Mary Roach on her website, her blog, and Twitter. I read this for my own Dewey Decimal Challenge. Buy Stiff at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore, and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on my site.