Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers?some willingly, some unwittingly?have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of ou Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two...
| Title | : | Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers |
| Author | : | Mary Roach |
| Rating | : | |
| Genres | : | Nonfiction |
| ISBN | : | Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers ISBN |
| Edition Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 303 pages pages |
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Reviews
Well, I am half way through this and it has turned into a huge disappointment. What started out to be a funny depiction on what happens to donated cadavers, has taken a turn for the horrible. By the 6th or 7th chapter, the author showed what I can only equate to laziness and added comm...
If you can?t cope with the idea of death without a hearty dose of euphemism ? this probably isn?t going to be the book for you. When I became an archivist at the City of Melbourne a very dear friend of mine became a technician at the city Morgue. I figured at the time he had w...
In spite of the macabre topic, Mary Roach must have had a ball doing her footwork for this book. Not happy to glean her information from published sources, Mary travelled extensively to conduct her research, and had doors opened for her that I doubt get opened very often. Let's fa...
Mary Roach details a lot of uses for human cadavers in this book, but she missed a major one. As Weekend At Bernies taught us, you can always use the corpse of your boss to scam your way into a free weekend at a beach house. That scientific research is all well and good, but there?s ...
I bought this book when I first taught my class that has a foresnic anthropology component. I thought I could pick out a chapter of this book to assign to them, and it would be a nice, informative, lay-person account that would be entertaining, yet informational. However, due to time c...
Mary Roach didn't strike me as funny or witty, just annoying. She's like the wise ass class clown in the back row, heckling the teacher and distracting everyone from an otherwise fairly decent lecture. Only she's supposed to be the teacher, too. What was her point? To ta...
In my nonfiction phase during the year, I grabbed this one and after finishing it, regretted its purchase. The book is about medical use of corpses and the human body, present-day and in the past. The subject matter is extremely interesting, and some of the methods, tests, and history ...
Mary Roach writes about what happens when you donate your body to science. Hilarity ensues. Well, maybe not hilarity but it is a good dose of edutainment. Way back around the time the earth's crust cooled and life spread across the planet, late 1994 or early 1995, I should thin...
Morbid and tongue-in-rancid-cheek funny nonfiction piece about what happens to a body when it's donated to science. From shaving off their faces for plastic surgery training to strapping them in for automobile crash tests, these stiff bodies are in for one hell-on-earth of a ride....
There was not a single zombie in this whole book!! Mary Roach writes books about some interesting topics. This is the one that most interested me, though on finishing I realized that I also had "Packing For Mars," which I think will likely get read sooner rather than later...
Laugh out loud funny is the way to go if you want to learn more than you realized might be worth knowing about dead bodies. It made me greatly disposed to finding out what else Roach has written, before I become a subject for studies like this one. And here are reviews of what we f...
Loved this one! Mary Roach brings enjoyment to the macabre in this extremely educational book. Everything you wanted (and some things you didn't want to) know about the life of a cadaver. Packed with laugh-out-loud humour and interesting facts on every page, you'll be sad as ...
Opening paragraph: The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much happens, and nothing is expected of you. If you read this book, you ...
I really ought to have read this sooner. I'm not sure what happened and why it took me so long to get this information into my brain. This is a book about what happens to dead bodies. It's an older title and some of the information therein has changed (Spoiler alert: there...
I've never been squeamish. From when I was a little girl I wanted to know how things work. And "things" were also living organisms. Not that I killed off animals to cut them up, mind you, but I started reading non-fiction books very early on and love books about anatomy ...
One of the best bizarre non fiction books that I have read lately ...
I never guessed I would want to know about what happens to a dead body after it ... dies. But here I am, reading and now reviewing a book on just that. Was it funny? Sometimes. Was it gross? Sometimes! But was it deeply FASCINATING? Yeah, I guess it was. It really wasn&apos...
Stiff is a book that really educated me, in terms of a topic that I was wholly unfamiliar with. Gone are the days when I thought that bodies were either donated to universities, cremated, or buried - there are SO MANY MORE OPTIONS. This book was both a fascinating and gruesome read....
Cadavers or dead bodies are certainly not something that I have ever expressed having any interest in; however, I found Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach very interesting. Roach covers it all--medical laboratories, crash testing, funeral rituals, gunshot wounds, ...
Morbid-ish. Plenty interesting. Scary. How would a person wind up somewhere where bodies are studied in their putrefaction ways? Is that even mildly respectful? I'm not built for that, that's for sure. But it's an interesting read, nonetheless. It could be re...
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/ ?Cadavers are our superheroes: They brave fire without flinching, withstand falls from tall buildings and head-on car crashes into walls. You can fire a gun at them or run a speedboat over their legs, and it will not...
Book Blog | Bookstagram Overall Grossness: You put that monkey head back where it came from, or so help me! Best Cadaver: They were all beautiful, in their own dissected ways. Plot Educational-ness: Thinking about your own expiration date has never been more fun! I think if you...
First read of 2017 complete! It was a good one - 4.5 stars. Who knew that a book about what happens to our bodies after we die could be so interesting. This book covers everything to the horrific to the incredibly fascinating. This book may not be for the squeamish, but I think Roac...
R, is for Roach 3.5 Stars HUM-ANE: adjective: humane; comparative adjective: humaner; superlative adjective: humanest 1. having or showing compassion or benevolence. "regulations ensuring the humane treatment of animals" synonyms: compassionate, kind, consi...
Omg and Grossness! I made the mistake of trying to eat a bit while reading this! Just no! And then a part where they talk about left over skin being used for wrinkle stuff and something to do with penises. I didn't even look up the word they used. Although, now, if a penis...
A while back I told my husband I really wanted to read this book. I went on and on about how it received great reviews and at the time he seemed extremely interested. Let?s pause right here so I can explain his levels of interest and how to read them: NOT INTERESTED ? Change...
I'm a compulsive buyer of Mary Roach's books. Part of the reason is research for my own books, of course, part of it is fascination, thanks to her astute choice of subjects, and part of it is simply enjoyment, derived from her clear prose and tales well told. In this case, I ...
4.5* After giving this some more thought I?ve added to this review. Additions are in bold. Have you ever wondered what happens to the body when it dies? Or how cadavers donated to science are used? Have you ever wondered if embalming keeps your body from ever decaying? These ...
3,5* - this was a pretty interesting and entertaining read. It felt a bit repetitive at times but it made up for that with being quite humorous. ...
Fascinating, touching and surprisingly wholesome considering it's about dead bodies Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is. Mary Roach brings cadavers into a whole new, sometimes painfully b...
