Stiff

Stiff

by Mary Roach

I finished a very strange favorite book called Stiff by Mary Roach.  The book details the history of the human cadaver.  From the history of gravediggers exhuming bodies to make a living (selling them to science) to how the human body decays to how to embalm and everything in between, this book chronicles every aspect of the body after death.  Chapters are “self-contained” and focus on all things related to the body once someone dies.  Roach explores how cadavers are used as test subjects for car crashes, transplanted parts, practice bodies in the lab for medical students, new methods for embalming, cannibalism, and whether Jesus could have suffered on a cross based on the pictures on the cross.  She finally wraps up the book with her own thoughts on whether she will donate her body to medicine after her death.  I actually learned a great deal, but I’m not so sure I wanted to know all I found out.  It is a “niche read”, one that you’ll probably either love or find disturbing….  Parts of it were hard to read after lunch to be honest.  Just shows the great diversity of interests NYU students have in terms of reading materials.