Beloved, best-selling science writer Mary Roach’s “acutely entertaining, morbidly fascinating” (Susan Adams, Forbes) classic, now with a new epilogue. 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 confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way. “Delightful—though never disrespectful” (Les Simpson, Time Out New York), Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should we do after we die? “This quirky, funny read offers perspective and insight about life, death and the medical profession. . . . You can close this book with an appreciation of the miracle that the human body really is.” —Tara Parker-Pope, Wall Street Journal “Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting.” —Entertainment Weekly
The best-selling author of Stiff and Bonk trains her considerable wit and curiosity on the human soul. "What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die.
From acclaimed, New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach comes the complete collection of her “My Planet” articles published in Reader’s Digest. She was a hit columnist in the magazine, and this book features the articles she wrote in that time. Insightful and hilarious, Mary explores the ins and outs of the modern world: marriage, friends, family, food, technology, customer service, dental floss, and ants—she leaves no element of the American experience unchecked for its inherent paradoxes, pleasures, and foibles. On Cleanliness: Ed has crud vision, and I don’t. I don’t notice filth. Ed sees it everywhere. I am reasonably convinced that Ed can actually see bacteria. . . . He confessed he didn’t like me using his bathrobe because I’d wear it while sitting on the toilet. “It’s not like it goes in the water,” I protested, though if you counted the sash as part of the robe, this wasn’t strictly true. On the Internet: The Internet is a boon for hypochondriacs like me. Right now, for instance, I’m feeling a shooting pain on the side of my neck. A Web search produces five matches, the first three for a condition called Arnold-Chiari Malformation. While my husband, Ed, reads over my shoulder, I recite symptoms from the list. “‘General clumsiness’ and ‘general imbalance,’” I say, as though announcing arrivals at the Marine Corps Ball. “‘Difficulty driving,’ ‘lack of taste,’ ‘difficulty feeling feet on ground.’” “Those aren’t symptoms,” says Ed. “Those are your character flaws.” On Fashion: My husband recently made me try on a bikini. A bikini is not so much a garment as a cloth-based reminder that your parts have been migrating all these years. My waist, I realized that day in the dressing room, has completely disappeared beneath my rib cage, which now rests directly on my hips. I’m exhibiting continental drift in reverse. On Eating Healthy: So Ed and I were eating a lot of vegetables. Vegetables on pasta, vegetables on rice. This was extremely healthy, until you got to the part where Ed and I are found in the kitchen at 10 p.m., feeding on Froot Loops and tubes of cookie dough.
An Instant New York Times Bestseller #1 Los Angeles Times Bestseller #1 Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Join "America’s funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post), Mary Roach, on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque. Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.
“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) explores the irresistibly strange universe of life without gravity in this New York Times bestseller. The best-selling author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. From the Space Shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule, Mary Roach takes us on the surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.
“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) asks the questions children ask in this young readers adaptation of her best-selling Packing for Mars. What is it like to float weightlessly in the air? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a spacewalk? How do astronauts go to the bathroom? Is it true that they don’t shower? Can farts really be deadly in space? Best-selling Mary Roach has the answers. In this whip-smart, funny, and informative young readers adaptation of her best-selling Packing for Mars, Roach guides us through the irresistibly strange, frequently gross, and awe-inspiring realm of space travel and life without gravity. From flying on NASA’s Weightless Wonder to eating space food, Packing for Mars for Kids is chock-full of firs-hand experiences and thorough research. Roach has crafted an authoritative and accessible book that is perfectly pitched to inquiring middle grade readers.
A New York Times / National Bestseller "America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.
What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? When you can’t have sex? Or smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles an hour? Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh veg, privacy, beer. To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations, and as Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. Packing for Mars takes us on a surreally entertaining voyage into the science of life in space and space on Earth.
Does the light just go out and that’s that – the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?” Mary Roach trains her considerable humour and curiosity on the human soul, seeking answers from a varied and fascinating crew of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. Along the way she encounters electromagnetic hauntings, out-of-body experiences, ghosts and lawsuits: Mary Roach sifts and weighs the evidence in her hilarious, inimitable style.
The Wig Diaries is Mary Ladd's debut irreverent cancer book. Delivered with bold gallows humor, it intimately address the gravity of cancer and invites the reader to bear witness to both the horror and the joke(s). Armed with creative sensibility, Ladd robs her diagnosis of its dour weightiness. Refusing to tiptoe around the gnarlier elements of treatment and recovery, the narrative is powerful in its unvarnished honesty and contagious lust for life exemplified by hilarious anecdotes. A uniquely fresh modern and black comedy take on cancer Covers and pokes fun at everything from diagnosis to treatment to medical bills Illustrated by noted San Francisco Chronicle Bad Reporter cartoonist Don Asmussen “I love this book.” —Mary Roach, author of the books Grunt, Stiff, Spook, and Bonk “This looks like a hoot and a half. I want more.” —Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), author of A Series of Unfortunate Events “Clear-eyed, fun, and reassuring, it’s the perfect guide!” —Vanessa Hua, author of A River of Stars and Deceit and Other Possibilities
Mary's Healing Point of View just may be the catalyst that will empower you to move forward in your life to greater happiness, success, joy, bliss, and peace. This is an entertaining account of Mary and her family's history. This revealing and honest book sounds like a novel, but it is all true. There are hidden secrets that are disclosed, sexual and physical abuse, attempted murder, laughter, adultery, marriages, divorce, and more. As one reader said, "The book runs the gamut of emotions." This sensational book is interwoven by thought-provoking questions, lessons, and quotes. You may find that you get motivated to change that old programming you no longer want when you read Healing Point of View.
Travel with Mary, her minister husband and her family as they leave the posh community of Beverly Hills to serve a small church in New Mexico, a world away from the atmosphere they had known in California. The way of life, the climate, the scenery, the food...all so different. Interesting and unusual characters filled their lives every day as they lived and worked among a wonderful panoply of people. Enjoying historical Route 66 as their main thoroughfare created many delightful stories told in a relaxed, humorous way. To make the reading easier, the style of writing is in the fashion of “stream of consciousness” of an earlier literary period, so you may occasionally find duplication of incidents due to “rambling” All names have been changed to protect the real characters written about. Apologies to anyone who willingly claims the identity.
Through It All is the story of a young California girl with high aspirations who instead finds her way into a world of disappointment, delusion and brokenness. Mary Snow's determination to change her circumstances brings contact with those who give courage to believe not only in herself but also in a sustaining Creator. With two failed marriages and four small sons she sets out on an incredible journey. In Through It All she shares the timeless truths which inspire any person who has ever wondered 'how am I going to make it?
In the graceful blue room, there was a little sleeping boy surrounded by his magical and peaceful things, who wakes up full of joy and to the wonder and beauty of Gods day...Good moning Sun!
This inspiring book was written by a woman eighty-seven years young who wants her grandchildren to know what her wonderful world was like. The world has changed, but the affairs of the heart remain the same. Her generation faced many of the same temptations, hopes and fears that young people face today. Staying in love with a life-time partner is possible. It is also a blessing beyond belief. As an Air Force Family, their many moves at home and over seas meant constant adjusting to new friends, jobs, schools, churches...new everything. Extra love, including tough love and understanding are key ingredients. Without the Lord's help, her life as a wife and mother would have been a nightmare, not a beautiful dream come true. Nor would she have been able to climb the mountain confronting her family in the year 2002.
It is April 2013. Gen Fletcher leaves her husband behind and heads to Little Beaver, Minnesota, to complete the school year for Evelyn Pretsler, a high school teacher who has mysteriously disappeared. As a young educator who does not like being told where she can go and what she can do, Gen has already ignored the naysayers and is more than ready to embrace new experiences. But as Gen arrives in the small isolated town and checks into the Bumblebee Inn, she has no idea that she has unwittingly placed herself smack dab in the middle of a crisis. As the newest stranger in town, Gen soon discovers that the people of Little Beaver are an eclectic group that includes a Native American, a lumberjack poet, and a sheriff unwilling to disclose the details of Pretslers disappearance. As Gen begins immersing herself in her six-week adventure, she learns further information about Pretsler that leaves her with more questions than answers. But when Gen is left to deal with troublesome students in her classroom, what she finds soon draws her into the murder investigation and leaves her teaching career in jeopardy. Dontcha Know? shares the tale of a young womans adventure in a small Minnesota town after she agrees to take over a missing teachers classroom and finds herself embroiled in a complex mystery.
Did Mary keep a journal? We know she kept one in her heart, but what if she had only written her account of the activities of her sons ministry? What insights might we gain through her conversations with the weary travelers who stopped at the carpentry shop to discuss Jesus actions? Through Marys conversations with the people who received some of these miracles, we are given a new point of view of the environment at that time, and the background of the people involved. Were the scribes and Pharisees, and even Jesus brothers, justified in their condemnation of Jesus teaching? Did Mary ever doubt her sons actions even though she knew He was conceived by the Holy Spirit? Her journal entries provide possible answers to questions often asked of Jesus ministry. Mary even introduces a few new miracles that were not included in the scriptures. As John tells us in 21:25, And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. This heartwarming rendition of Jesus ministry through the eyes of His mother provides a fresh perspective to some very old stories.
A story that strikes a chord deep in the heart and speaks to the values and emotions of us all, Crossing Purdy Creek is the life-affirming, intricately-woven account of an older woman coming to terms with her past. After her mothers death, Kate begins to experience an uncomfortable, inexplicable yearning to revisit the place where she grew up. She is haunted by a strange dream and disturbed by the memories that have surfaced. She cannot ignore the feeling that she needs to go home. Prompted by a friend, who suggests that Kate just might have a divine appointment, she finally returns to the setting of her childhood. The farmland of Ohio has changed a great deal; where fields of corn and wheat once stood, there are now streets, homes, and businesses. Most of the old families are gone. Kate questions the wisdom of her trip. But then she locates a familiar face, and an old friendship is rekindled. In the process she discovers some amazing information about her life. The account that follows is a touching family drama, a story of unconditional love in the face of rejection and condemnation. It is a story of uncommon courage and healing in the face of shame, loss, and heartbreak. Its an inspiring story of Gods leading. Reverberating with notes of tenderness and victory, Crossing Purdy Creek reminds us that God surely has a purpose for every life.
A young boy's love of nature and wonderment for the world set him off on a voyage of discovery as he charts the migration of the rubythroated and rufous hummingbirds to bring healing to a beloved teacher
Eyes to See: The Redemptive Purpose of Icons offers the discovery of life-giving spiritual insights found through learning to read the language of religious icons. Written especially for those whose traditions have not included icons, this book introduces eight icons written (painted) by the author. Historical notes, explanation of symbolism, related scriptures for interpretation, and a reflection for each icon deepens understanding and appreciation for the ancient holy images of the Church. The book is eight chapters in length, each describing one of the eight full-color icon plates in the insert.
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