Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Summary (from the publisher): Okay, you're thinking, this must be some kind of a joke. A humorous book about cadavers? Yup, and it works. Mary Roach takes the age-old question, "What happens to us after we die?" quite literally. And in Stiff, she explores the "lives" of human cadavers from the time of the ancient Egyptians all the way up to current campaigns for human composting. Along the way, she recounts with morbidly infectious glee how dead bodies are used for research ranging from car safety and plastic surgery (you'll cancel your next collagen injection after reading this!), to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.


Impossible (and irreverent) as it may sound, Roach has written a book about corpses that's both lively and fresh. She traveled around the globe to conduct her forensic investigations, and her findings are wryly intelligent. While the myriad uses for cadavers recounted are often graphic, Roach imbues her subject with a sense of dignity, choosing to emphasize the oddly noble purposes corpses serve, from organ donation to lifesaving medical research. Readers will come away convinced of the enormous debt that we, the living, owe to the study of the remains of the dead. And while it may not offer the answer to the ancient mystery we were hoping for, Stiff offers a strange sort of comfort in the knowledge that, in a sense, death isn't necessarily the end.

Review: This book was both gross and educational. I usually read during my lunch break - had to forego that with this one. That being said, it was highly informative in a very witty way. Roach obviously did extensive research on everything from bodies donated for research to cannibalism to humans as compost. It's one thing to read this book but I can't imagine having to spend ages researching/thinking about this topic. I used to imagine that there was a dignified way to dispose of human remains but after reading this I see that there's no way to do it that's not distasteful. So, might as well be a useful cadaver.

Stars: 4