Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Sep 13, 2013 Ashley Holstrom rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, print, body, nonfiction, reviewed, favorites, own-print, journalism, true-crime, microhistory

Stiff is the first of Mary Roach’s books I ever read, which prompted me to immediately gobble up two more once I finished it. Stiff is about what happens to bodies when they are donated to science — because, fun fact, if you choose to donate your body, you don’t have much say in where you go. Being used by medical students and for forensics research makes sense. But did you know cadavers are also used as crash test dummies and target practice? Or that some of those medical students hold a funera ...more

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Jun 28, 2013 lisa_emily rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Stiff, hands down, is the most entertaining book I've read the summer of 2006. It covers the usual cadaver info: car crash tests done with cadavers, the University of Tennessee lab of decomposing cadavers (for forensic studies). But it also goes into the morbid history of head transplants- which includes stories of two-headed dogs and the attempts to revitalize guillotined victims' heads.

I was laughing out loud at Roach's antics in uncovering a newspaper story (rumor). She travels to China to tr ...more

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Dec 11, 2008 Kate rated it really liked it

This was a really interesting book, with lots of great factoids (did you know: a brown bear knee most closely resembles a human knee? male and female hearts have different EEGs, and keep those differences when transplanted across sexes?).

I'd say that the first half and the last quarter of this book are great, and the third quarter really isn't. For some reason, she takes a major tangent into the realm of Victorian gnarliness and head transplantation that's both irrelevant and especially unpleas ...more

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Mar 29, 2016 Bridget rated it liked it

Very interesting and also quite amusing. It was a bit long considering the morbid topic.

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Mar 16, 2016 Poppy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, rory-gilmore-book-list, rory-gilmore, microhistory, read-harder-challenge, 2016-book-challenge

Oh, FINE—now I have even more reasons for not wanting to die. GOD DAMN IT.

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Feb 24, 2011 Wendy E. rated it really liked it

Wow! Who would have thought a book about cadavers could be so funny and so engaging. The chapters range from A Head is a Terrible Thing to Waste to The Cadaver Who Joined the Army to Eat Me, Medicinal Cannibalism. I learned a great deal from reading this, some morbid facts and some fascinating. I will definitely read something else by Roach.

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Jul 21, 2008 Kristen rated it it was ok

Shelves: science, non-fiction

Eh. There were parts of this book that were utterly fascinating and entertaining, and yes, even morbidly hilarious. But there were lots of parts that I found to be quite boring. It's subjective, of course. But I didn't care much for it. ...more

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