Mary Roach - Stiff

Four stars. Recommended.

Stiff is one of the most grisly and unpleasant books I have ever read, but also one of the funniest I have recently come across. It is an exploration of human corpses, and how science makes use of them. Mary Roach takes a deep yet whimsical tour through medical dissections, forensic studies of bodily decay, crash test corpses, and more. Some of the material is thoroughly grotesque, but it is often her light and comical tone that indicates most clearly the respect she clearly has for the people who have donated their bodies. If the book was done more seriously, it may well have been unreadably unpleasant. As it is, it is engrossing, informative, and may make you see death in a whole new light.