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Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
by Mary Roach

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32145.Stiff_The_Curious_Lives_of_Human_Cadavers?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1168349242m/32145.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32145.Stiff_The_Curious_Lives_of_Human_Cadavers?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7956.Mary_Roach">Mary Roach</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/16873514?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars I'd been wanting to read this book for a long time before a friend finally gave me a copy for my birthday this year.
 
 The scope of the book is broader than I expected. I think I was expecting a bunch of funny, sometimes bittersweet stories about anatomy labs and funeral homes. Stiff is much more than that. Yes, it covers anatomy labs (one of my favorite chapters in the book) and funeral homes, but dead bodies go many more places than that -- crash-testing labs, for example. And sometimes into the pharmacopoeia of the dead person's own culture.
 
 Mary Roach's prose is bitingly funny, yet remains sensitive to the topic. There's a lot of gross stuff in here. This is not a book to read while you are eating anything -- especially meat. I initially sat down with this book at a Boston Market with a one-quarter chicken, macaroni & cheese, and broccoli, which was not a good thing to do at all, especially since the opening chapter is about severed human heads being used as facelift refresher surgery. I finished eating first, and then picked up the book again, and was much happier that way.
 
 Also pretty gross is the chapter about human body parts being used as folk medicines. I found that to be possibly the most gross thing in the book, and I generally have a pretty high tolerance for this stuff.
 
 An unexpected part of the book was the research Mary Roach did into up-and-coming body disposal methods -- alternatives to burial and cremation. I found this fascinating, and I'm hoping the Promessa method of composting bodies has received all the necessary go-aheads in the U.S. by the time I die. Just freeze-dry me and grind me up so I can help trees to grow.
 
 The only thing that kept me from giving the book five stars was all the information about transplants and other medical procedures being tested on animals. I know this information was essential in the context of the book, but I can take a lot less grossness if it involves an unwilling animal, as opposed to a human being who willed his or her body to science.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/961136?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Becky's review
rating:
recommended for: people interested in gross stuff, death, mortuary science, burial practices

I'd been wanting to read this book for a long time before a friend finally gave me a copy for my birthday this year.

The scope of the book is broader than I expected. I think I was expecting a bunch of funny, sometimes bittersweet stories about anatomy labs and funeral homes. Stiff is much more than that. Yes, it covers anatomy labs (one of my favorite chapters in the book) and funeral homes, but dead bodies go many more places than that -- crash-testing labs, for example. And sometimes into the pharmacopoeia of the dead person's own culture.

Mary Roach's prose is bitingly funny, yet remains sensitive to the topic. There's a lot of gross stuff in here. This is not a book to read while you are eating anything -- especially meat. I initially sat down with this book at a Boston Market with a one-quarter chicken, macaroni & cheese, and broccoli, which was not a good thing to do at all, especially since the opening chapter is about severed human heads being used as facelift refres...more I'd been wanting to read this book for a long time before a friend finally gave me a copy for my birthday this year.

The scope of the book is broader than I expected. I think I was expecting a bunch of funny, sometimes bittersweet stories about anatomy labs and funeral homes. Stiff is much more than that. Yes, it covers anatomy labs (one of my favorite chapters in the book) and funeral homes, but dead bodies go many more places than that -- crash-testing labs, for example. And sometimes into the pharmacopoeia of the dead person's own culture.

Mary Roach's prose is bitingly funny, yet remains sensitive to the topic. There's a lot of gross stuff in here. This is not a book to read while you are eating anything -- especially meat. I initially sat down with this book at a Boston Market with a one-quarter chicken, macaroni & cheese, and broccoli, which was not a good thing to do at all, especially since the opening chapter is about severed human heads being used as facelift refresher surgery. I finished eating first, and then picked up the book again, and was much happier that way.

Also pretty gross is the chapter about human body parts being used as folk medicines. I found that to be possibly the most gross thing in the book, and I generally have a pretty high tolerance for this stuff.

An unexpected part of the book was the research Mary Roach did into up-and-coming body disposal methods -- alternatives to burial and cremation. I found this fascinating, and I'm hoping the Promessa method of composting bodies has received all the necessary go-aheads in the U.S. by the time I die. Just freeze-dry me and grind me up so I can help trees to grow.

The only thing that kept me from giving the book five stars was all the information about transplants and other medical procedures being tested on animals. I know this information was essential in the context of the book, but I can take a lot less grossness if it involves an unwilling animal, as opposed to a human being who willed his or her body to science....less

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