This book started off quite well, but once the descriptions of animal abuse started, I couldn't finish it. Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. From medical research to transplants. Roach's tongue-in-cheek approach to this material, however, makes it difficult to know why she has written the book and who her intended audience might be. . Mary Roach's Stiff lifts the lid off what happens to our bodies once we have died. You can view Barnes & Noble’s Privacy Policy. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach 304pp, Viking, £14.99 . One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting.-- Entertainment Weekly Stiff is an oddly compelling,... Free Shipping on all orders over $10. There was a problem loading your book clubs. Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers provides a view into the world of the dead. There comes a point for all of us, Roach reminds us, when our bodies are no longer ourselves (the Boston Women's Health Collective notwithstanding). . Unable to add item to List. ", "Roach is authoritative, endlessly curious and drolly funny. Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers. Whether we're attending a gruesome autopsy or wandering down a memory lane of corpses, we find ghastly factoids and the people responsible for them around every corner. ", "Well written, with a reader-friendly format. Roach strives to be clear-eyed and matter-of-fact. I love hearing about the history of death and mourning, the history of medical research and organ donation. This book belongs to Mary Roach’s non-fiction work from the year 2003. ", "Lively and quirky....the writer's style is genuinely warm...she has a keen eye for observation of unique and ironic details. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, a book by Mary Roach Stiff Records, a British record label Seattle's True Independent Film Festival (STIFF), an annual event Jimmy Stiff, former member of American rock band Jackyl Surprisingly, given the author's determined efforts to appear cool and unsentimental, Roach's care for her dying mother appears to have at least partly motivated this project. But the author is clearly having such a good time with the material that you cannot help but read on in a state of appalled fascination. Finding where to download stiff the curious lives of human cadavers book online for free could be tedious sometimes and when one does find it, it’s mostly complicated. Submit your email address to receive Barnes & Noble offers & updates. I'm a naturally morbid person who has long been obsessed with death. Morbid, is not a word I would use to describe the tune of this rather I would use informative. Roach does a great job of presenting that information in a way that is detailed and humorous, while also keeping the reader's attention. From her opening lines ("The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Incredibly, considering the subject matter, I laughed many times at the wit of the author, and repeatedly exclaimed in astonishment at some of the things I learned. Physicians and anatomy students must learn to think of cadavers as wholly unrelated to the people they once were. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. For those who are interested in the fields of medicine or forensics and are aware of some of the procedures, this book makes excellent reading. ", "Though the cover...will draw many readers to this book, its deft prose will keep them returning. ", "Roach displays her metier in tangents about bizarre incendents in pathological history. Donating one's body to science sounds like an altruistic farewell for the betterment of humanity. For two thousand years, cadavers―some willingly, some unwittingly―have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. Human lives have significance beyond the mere sum of their biologic parts. I frequently refer to DoesTheDogDie before deciding to watch a movie or show and I know that I'm more sensitive to that type of content than others may be. The same sort of reverence, the sense that we owe one another a certain intrinsic respect, may have sustained the author through those troubling hours with her dying mother and may right now be helping those medical students in the difficult task of being present to the sick. Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. ", "[Roach] manages to make material that normally comes with a warning for the faint-hearted somehow light-hearted.
Let's use a pretty word. ", "Bring[s] alive a subject that has the potential to be deadly dull. I'm leaving this honest review from my own perception. Mary Roach's theme is the use of corpses in scientific research. I just didn't expect that and it was fairly depressing. Ballistics Practise?Life after death is not as simple as it looks. Big Think Interview With Mary Roach - Duration: 30:09. Mary Roach's nonfiction book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, humorously outlines the ways the human cadaver has served the living since the ancient Egyptians. From Shakespeare to Philip Roth, comic artists have mined the graveyard for bitter laughs. This is one of the first non fiction books I have read outside of University studies (I study history so this might be a surprising choice of book) but I have to say I was enthralled throughout. "With no prompting on my part, the students spoke of gratitude and preserving dignity, of having grown attached to their cadavers, of feeling bad about what they had to do to them. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Find books For instance, the chapter called "Beyond the Black Box," about injury analysis, explains that studying the bodies of plane-crash victims may help determine the cause of the crash. Up to 50% Off Select Toys and Collectibles, Knock Knock Gifts, Books & Office Supplies, B&N Exclusive Holiday Totes - $4.99 with Purchase, Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser, A Head is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Practicing surgery on the dead, Crimes of Anatomy: Body snatching and other sordid tales from the dawn of human dissection, Life After Death: On human decay and what can be done about it, Dead Man Driving: Human crash test dummies and the ghastly, necessary science of impact tolerance, Beyond the Black Box: When the bodies of the passengers must tell the story of a crash, The Cadaver Who Joined the Army: The sticky ethics of bullets and bombs, Holy Cadaver: The crucifixion experiments, How to Know if You're Dead: Beating-heart cadavers, live burial, and the scientific search for the soul, Just a Head: Decapitation, reanimation, and the human head transplant, Eat Me: Medicinal cannibalism and the case of the human dumplings, Out of the Fire, Into the Compost Bin: And other new ways to end up. For two thousand years, cadavers (some willingly, some unwittingly) have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions. Roach, Mary. ", "A funny but never disrespectful look at the curious world of cadaver research. I don't mind the "gross" stuff about human bodies or the "irreverence", that's the point of this book to explore these topics that we shy away from as a society. Disrespectful? Not to worry though as this PDF book site makes the whole process simple. ", "The numerous tidbits of information derived from the author's travels and interviews make [this book] uniquely appealing. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2012. Mary Roach is the author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Brief Overview of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Fertilizer? In some cases, it is needed to restore perspective or aid in understanding both what the procedures are accomplishing and what it is hoped will be learned. The depictions of horrific cruelty to animals are completely unnecessary. Download books for free. Roach writes in an insouciant style and displays her metier in tangents about bizarre incidents in pathological history. Claire T 3,758 views. New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2004, c2003. Her morbid subject—perverse, unsettling and voyeuristic—makes her book hard to put down.” Dean Narcisco, Every detail is fascinating.” Henry Kisor, Roach...goes into gruesome detail, but she also succeeds in not making the subject at hand too morbid.” Kim Colton, Our own instinctive discomfort with death provides fodder for Roach's dry sense of humor throughout the book” Ana Marie Cox, Roach's conversational tone and her gallows humor bring her subjects to life....Morbidly entertaining.” Alex Abramovich, Mary Roach is an extremely funny science writer” Laurence A Marschall, Bring[s] alive a subject that has the potential to be deadly dull.” Steve Fiffer, Delightful....authoritative, endlessly curious and drolly funny.” Adam Wong, [Roach's] knack for detailed research and loose Dave Barry-ish style makes Stiff a leisurely and enjoyable read.” Tom Westin, An unflinching, often hilarious cultural history.” Erica C Barnett, Outrageously funny, irreverent"—but respectful....so delightfully written, this book is difficult to put down.” Brian Richard Boylan, Roach's deliberate carefulness diminishes the topic's gore and sets a comfortable, comic tone that finds solace in its own oddity.” Tom Lynch, Roach displays her metier in tangents about bizarre incendents in pathological history.” Gilbert Taylor, An informative, gently funny but never irreverent look at the various uses society makes of the dead.” Tom Pantera, ©1997-2021 Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Inc. 33 East 17th Street, New York, NY 10003, "One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting.". Unless you are working in the death industry, or as a medical professional of some kind, most us have the pleasure of never having to see or think about dead bodies. It was one of the best summer's of my life. Some donors arrive at the expected places, such as anatomy classrooms, but would a person willingly assent to her postmortem decapitation so plastic surgeons could practice on her head unencumbered by the torso? But they are also used by car engineers in crash tests, by the military to study the effects of weapons (and protective equipment), and by forensic experts investigating crimes and disasters. In "Just a Head," about a series of weird attempts to transplant animal heads, Roach offers the following advice: "My recommendation to you is that you never eat baba ghanoush or, for that matter, any soft, glistening food item while carrying on a conversation involving monkey brains." Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Penguin; New Ed edition (September 6, 2012). What happens to your body after you have died? The experimentation on living animals seemed to be kind of a joke to her and it started to make me sick to my stomach and sort of ruined an otherwise fascinating book. Their best known use is in medicine, where they are employed both as a teaching aid for students and a source of organs for the living. There are also chapters on cannibalism, including an aside on dumplings allegedly filled with human remains from a Chinese crematorium, methods of disposal (burial, cremation, composting) and "beating-heart" cadavers used in organ transplants. ", "Surprisingly entertaining. ", "[Roach] has written a curiously funny, touching and respectful study. ", "Expect the insightful with the hilarious. I'm afraid that the author needs to come up for air. Reviewing to me is an exercise of concision and organization, helping bring order to my mind and rigor to my prose. Maybe a little. Please try your request again later. ", "A laugh-out-loud funny book....one of those wonderful books that offers enlightenment in the guise of entertainment. ", "An unflinching, often hilarious cultural history. There was some of that in here and, regarding those parts, I found them to be interesting and informative. It's encouraging to suggest alternative methods of body disposable instead of traditional burial or cremation, especially if you can become fertiliser and assist in the growth of a plant or tree after death. Because the bodies of victims of the wreck of TWA Flight 800, which mysteriously blew apart in the air and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island in July 1996, were found to be largely intact, a bomb was thought to be highly unlikely. Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2019. You Save 10%. Crash Test Dummy? . Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2019. For that reason I recommend this book. The well-being of the living depends in part on making use of bodies after death for physician training and the like. 13,924 reviews. Mostly dealing with such contemporary uses such as stand-ins for crash-test dummies, Roach also pulls together considerable historical and background information. Death is inconceivable; illness, among other things, often absurd. However, Roach, a Salon and Reader's Digest columnist, has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty.
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