S.J. Parris
S.J. Parris writes about her inspiration for Heresy, which masterfully blends true events with fiction into a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
Adam Haslett
A conversation with Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic, a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century.
For two thousand years, cadavers - some willingly, some unwittingly - have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.
In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries—from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.
Book Reviews
Library Journal
Despite the irreverent, macabre title, this is a respectful and serious examination of what happens to cadavers, past and present.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Roach…has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty….Roach has a fabulous eye and a wonderful voice…. impossible to put down.
Outside
Mordantly witty
The Denver Post
Squeamish readers beware! But for the rest, this is an outrageously funny, irreverent (but respectful) account of what happens to the human body after a person has died, and that's far more involved than simple burial or cremation.
New City Chicago
Roach's deliberate carefulness diminishes the topic's gore and sets a comfortable, comic tone that finds solace in its own oddity. Certain sections of the book are nothing short of mesmerizing, namely the portions dedicated to the University of Tennessee's body farm, and the analysis of remains after plane crashes. By and large, the dead aren't very talented, Roach writes. They may not be talented, but in Stiff, they sure are fun.
Baltimore City Paper
What's so funny about being dead? Nothing, of course, if it's Grandmother. But those who work with dead bodies frequently, such as the detectives in Homicide, tend to adopt a gallows humor. Mary Roach, who saw her share of corpses by the time she was done researching Stiff, has learned how to cut the tension with a good joke. It turns out that Stiff is one of the funniest, best-written, most thoroughly researched books of the year--a constant pleasure, even when Roach is describing, in graphic detail, exploratory surgery on a cadaver.
The San Francisco Chronicle
Roach has done her homework so we don't have to. Her book's a winner.
The Chicago Sun-Times
One does not skim this book. Every detail is riveting. It is impossible to tear one's eyes away from Roach's description of the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility, where at a body farm--a bucolic meadow--scores of donated cadavers decompose noisomely outdoors so that forensic scientists can better learn to sniff out clues from the bodies of murder victims.
Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice selection)
Because she always draws a distinction between you and your smelly carcass (not the same person, she argues), Roach gets away with the cheerfully morbid smart-ass commentary that abounds throughout. She's written one of the funniest and most unusual books of the year.
Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief
Droll, dark, and quite wise, Stiff makes being dead funny and fascinating and weirdly appealling.
Joe Queenan, author of Balsamic Dreams
Mary Roach proves what many of us have long suspected that the real fun in life doesn't start until you're dead. I particularly enjoyed the sections about head transplants, black-market mummies, and how to tell if you're actually dead.
Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist
As fascinating as it is funny.... The research is admirable, the anecdotes carefully chosen, and the prose lively; and they combine to produce a book that everyone in the health care field should have to read, and everyone else will want to.
When his daughter, Amy, died suddenly of a heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife moved in with their son-in-law and their three young grandchildren. His story tells how a family makes the possible out of the impossible.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family.
The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right.
Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. The Swan Thieves is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.
I read this book in two days and found it so refreshing. Although you will learn a great deal about barn owls by reading it, the book is not just ...
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I enjoyed reading this book, however, feel that this is not completely her own ideas. This books remembers me of a cross between 'ghost','Sixth ...
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Lisa See has written a great book! This story is satisfying on many levels, some scenes horrifying, but seemingly truthful, and her handling of the ...
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Amazon 'buy button' rumors abound(Mar 18 2010) Rumors swirled today that Amazon could revoke the buy buttons for books by Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin, or Hachette if the major publishers can't...
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Amazon's e-pricing threats(Mar 18 2010) With Apple's iPad launch just weeks away, Amazon raised the stakes again when it threatened to stop directly selling the books of some publishers online...
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Stiff
Library Journal
Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief
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