Sarah Montambo's review
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
by Mary Roach
Mary Roach is extremely reverential about her topic, but there's just no getting around the fact that she has a very funny way with words.
I read this when I was living in San Francisco, and the only thing I loved more than the looks I got for laughing out loud where the furtive looks away once people saw the title. Best BART book ever.
I laughed quite a bit at the first few chapters. I'm ready for something funny after "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle."
BART means:
Bring Along Road Trippy?
Boast About Reading This?
I hear ya, there was waaay too much down in the well part and my favorite sequence with the POW left me in the mood for something more cheery as well.
BART means:
Sh*t! I suck at this! I keep getting stuck on...
Bombs Above Rob Thomas.
Which doesn't make any sense!
How about the truth?!
Butchering and Roasting Turtles?
Being a Real Tease?
Are you coyly referring to your own goodreads profile?
Oh God--please beam my body up to heaven when I die so that I don't have to go through the human decomposition phases outlined so pleasantly in chapter 3. Thank you.
Oh--and Steve, the real tease is you because you still haven't told me what a BART book is (assuming that it has nothing to do with Rob Thomas).
I love how you're asking God/Scotty to beam you to heaven while you're reading about the sex lifes of cannibals and getting stoned with savages. You are SUCH a post refermational protestant!!!
How is Scotty going to beam you up to heaven when James Doohan died on July 20, 2005? You're certainly welcome to wait for his attentions, but personally I'll be taking Bay Area Rapid Transit for my trip to the next world :D
(It goes under the bay! That's like travelling UNDER the river Styx! How cool is that?)
from Wikipedia: "In what may be regarded as an ironic coincidence, Doohan died on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, arguably the greatest engineering achievement in human history to date.
Almost two years after his death, approximately one-quarter ounce (7 grams) of Doohan's ashes were sent into space,[8] as he had requested in his will."
I wanted God to beam me up just like Mary (up for interpretation). Marie was the secular one who brought Scotty into it!
Taking the BART into the 'next world' would be all right, too. I'd give my body to science, but I just read about how some of the cadavers are used to test auto safety and are dropped onto glass forehead first from great heights. I don't know why this bothers me more than being used to practice rhinoplasty, but it does!
Sending your ashes into space is a pretty awesome option, as well.
Oh, it gets strange, that book. But I loved it.
Chapter 10 freaked me out, but in a 'i-couldn't stop-reading' kind of way. Bizarre.
Death should be entertaining. I hope mine is. :)
Auto Testing's pretty noble, but I'm hoping that if my corpse is going to be manhandled it'll be at the hands of 'The Practical Joker'.
Oakland isn't the 'next world'? Is Berkeley the new pergatory?
I THINK I would like to read this book. I think about the topic often. when I talk about death with friends I get the immediate feeling I've said too much. The physical process of decay...I don't know maybe I should wait.
As a vegetarian, I'm skipping Chapter 10.
David, this book is pretty entertaining. I love books that make me realize that I have NO IDEA about most of what's going on out there!
****SPOILER ALERT****
Chapter 10
For a long time, I was fascinated by stories of human cannibalism. I read a lot of books out there that dealt with the subject, both in a fictional and non-fictional context.
To me, that chapter is just another in a long line of unsuccessful attempts to peer into the human psyche, to find out 'what would drive a person to do that?'
But I can understand how someone would not want to read about it, too. :)
I will try, but I just don't know if I can stomach it (groan/hee-hee).
And this is why, at the end of the day, I'm glad you are a nonfiction nerd so that I can hear the most interesting tidbits without having to do the actual work of reading the book.
You have to read it! It's so good Marie! But I'm glad that Sarah is a nonfiction nerd too (now you can borrow her copy & I won't have to lend you mine).
The thing is with an impending birthday, I am all too aware of the decomposition of our bodies and I'm not sue I want to find out how much worse it gets. That being said, when I do get over my "boo-hoo I'll-be-40-in-3 -years pity party" I will need to borrow your copy cuz Sarah got it from the library. I promise not to cry or barf on it (too much).
Not only will I let you borrow my copy, but I'll race you to 37. Oct 15th? Going once..going twice..
Btw, you misspelled "sure" ancient one.
And the winner is...Marie with 17 days to spare!
..and here I thought I felt young & spritely today because one of my co-workers turned me on to 'Diet Pepsi Max'.
Sarah Montambo's review
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Sarah Montambo's review
rating:
bookshelves:
death,
funny,
nonfiction
recommended for: people who like to make donations.
Some thoughts:
1. Barring that I marry a sentimental husband who wants my remains to lie next to his in some family plot, I'll happily give up my body for science. It seems that we owe much of the safety created for us in cars, planes, in surgery, etc., to countless others who gave up their bodies, as well. Of course, they may have imagined (as I did before reading this book) that they'd just end up pickled in formaldehyde and plunked into a gross anatomy classroom, but no. There are many inventive and useful experiments that cadavers partake in every day. Who knew?
2. As I've never sky-dived (so far), I hope my cadaver does something as exciting as getting tossed off a plane into the ocean to see how far bodies need to fall from a plane before their clothes are stripped off. I've never swam out in the middle of the ocean, either, so this would be checking off two adventures in one go.
3. Even though it's for a noble cause, I hope my body is NOT dropped forehead-first o...more
1. Barring that I marry a sentimental husband who wants my remains to lie next to his in some family plot, I'll happily give up my body for science. It seems that we owe much of the safety created for us in cars, planes, in surgery, etc., to countless others who gave up their bodies, as well. Of course, they may have imagined (as I did before reading this book) that they'd just end up pickled in formaldehyde and plunked into a gross anatomy classroom, but no. There are many inventive and useful experiments that cadavers partake in every day. Who knew?
2. As I've never sky-dived (so far), I hope my cadaver does something as exciting as getting tossed off a plane into the ocean to see how far bodies need to fall from a plane before their clothes are stripped off. I've never swam out in the middle of the ocean, either, so this would be checking off two adventures in one go.
3. Even though it's for a noble cause, I hope my body is NOT dropped forehead-first o...more
Mary Roach is extremely reverential about her topic, but there's just no getting around the fact that she has a very funny way with words.
I read this when I was living in San Francisco, and the only thing I loved more than the looks I got for laughing out loud where the furtive looks away once people saw the title. Best BART book ever.
I laughed quite a bit at the first few chapters. I'm ready for something funny after "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle."BART means:
Bring Along Road Trippy?
Boast About Reading This?
I hear ya, there was waaay too much down in the well part and my favorite sequence with the POW left me in the mood for something more cheery as well.
BART means:
Sh*t! I suck at this! I keep getting stuck on...
Bombs Above Rob Thomas.
Which doesn't make any sense!
How about the truth?!Butchering and Roasting Turtles?
Being a Real Tease?
Are you coyly referring to your own goodreads profile?
Oh God--please beam my body up to heaven when I die so that I don't have to go through the human decomposition phases outlined so pleasantly in chapter 3. Thank you.
Oh--and Steve, the real tease is you because you still haven't told me what a BART book is (assuming that it has nothing to do with Rob Thomas).
I love how you're asking God/Scotty to beam you to heaven while you're reading about the sex lifes of cannibals and getting stoned with savages. You are SUCH a post refermational protestant!!!
How is Scotty going to beam you up to heaven when James Doohan died on July 20, 2005? You're certainly welcome to wait for his attentions, but personally I'll be taking Bay Area Rapid Transit for my trip to the next world :D
(It goes under the bay! That's like travelling UNDER the river Styx! How cool is that?)
from Wikipedia: "In what may be regarded as an ironic coincidence, Doohan died on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, arguably the greatest engineering achievement in human history to date.
Almost two years after his death, approximately one-quarter ounce (7 grams) of Doohan's ashes were sent into space,[8] as he had requested in his will."
I wanted God to beam me up just like Mary (up for interpretation). Marie was the secular one who brought Scotty into it!
Taking the BART into the 'next world' would be all right, too. I'd give my body to science, but I just read about how some of the cadavers are used to test auto safety and are dropped onto glass forehead first from great heights. I don't know why this bothers me more than being used to practice rhinoplasty, but it does!
Sending your ashes into space is a pretty awesome option, as well.
Oh, it gets strange, that book. But I loved it.
Chapter 10 freaked me out, but in a 'i-couldn't stop-reading' kind of way. Bizarre.
Death should be entertaining. I hope mine is. :)
Auto Testing's pretty noble, but I'm hoping that if my corpse is going to be manhandled it'll be at the hands of 'The Practical Joker'.
Oakland isn't the 'next world'? Is Berkeley the new pergatory?
I THINK I would like to read this book. I think about the topic often. when I talk about death with friends I get the immediate feeling I've said too much. The physical process of decay...I don't know maybe I should wait.
As a vegetarian, I'm skipping Chapter 10.
David, this book is pretty entertaining. I love books that make me realize that I have NO IDEA about most of what's going on out there!
****SPOILER ALERT****
Chapter 10
For a long time, I was fascinated by stories of human cannibalism. I read a lot of books out there that dealt with the subject, both in a fictional and non-fictional context.
To me, that chapter is just another in a long line of unsuccessful attempts to peer into the human psyche, to find out 'what would drive a person to do that?'
But I can understand how someone would not want to read about it, too. :)
I will try, but I just don't know if I can stomach it (groan/hee-hee).
And this is why, at the end of the day, I'm glad you are a nonfiction nerd so that I can hear the most interesting tidbits without having to do the actual work of reading the book.
You have to read it! It's so good Marie! But I'm glad that Sarah is a nonfiction nerd too (now you can borrow her copy & I won't have to lend you mine).
The thing is with an impending birthday, I am all too aware of the decomposition of our bodies and I'm not sue I want to find out how much worse it gets. That being said, when I do get over my "boo-hoo I'll-be-40-in-3 -years pity party" I will need to borrow your copy cuz Sarah got it from the library. I promise not to cry or barf on it (too much).
Not only will I let you borrow my copy, but I'll race you to 37. Oct 15th? Going once..going twice..
Btw, you misspelled "sure" ancient one.
And the winner is...Marie with 17 days to spare!
..and here I thought I felt young & spritely today because one of my co-workers turned me on to 'Diet Pepsi Max'.