Awards

• Joint winner for YALSA Alex Award 2004.
• Joint winner of Alex Award 2004
• Joint winner of YALSA Alex Award 2004

Overview

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. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.

Full Product Details

9780393324822

Table of Contents

Reviews

This quirky, funny read offers perspective and insight about life, death and the medical profession... You can close this book with an appreciation of the miracle that the human body really is. -- Tara Parker-Pope 'Uproariously funny' doesn't seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach... has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty. A laugh-out-loud funny book... one of those wonderful books that offers up enlightenment in the guise of entertainment. -- Michael Little As weird as the book gets, Roach manages to convey a sense of respect and appreciation for her subjects. -- Roy Rivenburg Roach's conversational tone and her gallows humor bring her subjects to life. -- Alex Abramovich Roach seems intent on helping us (and herself) get a better handle on the meaning of death, or, at least, on making one's own death meaningful. -- Steve Fiffer Roach is authoritative, endlessly curious and drolly funny. Her research is scrupulous and winningly presented. -- Adam Woog Mary Roach is one of an endangered species: a science writer with a sense of humor. She is able to make macabre funny without looting death of its dignity. -- Brian Richard Boylan Roach writes in an insouciant style and displays her metier in tangents about bizarre incidents in pathological history. Death may have the last laugh, but, in the meantime, Roach finds merriment in the macabre. -- Gilbert Taylor Acutely entertaining, morbidly fascinating. -- Susan Adams

[Roach] has written a curiously funny, touching and respectful study. -- Nancy Summers (08/17/2003)

Author Information

Mary Roach is the author of seven best-selling works of nonfiction, including Grunt, Stiff, and, most recently, Fuzz. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. She lives in California.

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