I finished Stiff by Mary Roach a few weeks ago, but things have been so crazy I haven't had a chance to tell you about it, so here goes:
I really enjoyed this one, but it's definitely not for everyone. The subject matter is definitely hard to stomach, and death is not something many of us are comfortable with. Given that, Roach adds a lot of humor to the topic, while at the same time pointing out all of the ways that cadavers help the living. She definitely covers a lot of territory from forensic study of decay to "medicinal" uses of corpse parts.
If you have a quirky sense of humor and a lot of curiousity, you'll enjoy this book. It made me laugh out loud quite a few times. If you're more conservative, though, you might want to skip this one. It leans slightly towards the voyeuristic and some of Roach's humor is easy to take offense to. It's full of information, though, and enjoyable as a quick and entertaining look into a strange and obscure subject.
The bottom line: you'll need to decide for yourself if you want to check this one out, but personally, I enjoyed it.
Glad to hear it was good. I heard an interview with Mary Roach on NPR. They were promoting her book and it sounded pretty interesting. I just got caught up in all the other books I was reading and haven't had the opportunity to add it to the list. I think I will bump it up after I finish 'The Golden Ratio' by Mario Livio. It is some background information on some of the math that was in 'The Davinci Code'.
You can also catch some things by Mary on other websites. As part of the promotion of her book, she guest posted at a number of blogs including Erik Benson's and Kottke's. You can find the list of sites she posted at here.
I'd be interested to hear how The Golden Ratio is, as I was really interested in the math in The DaVinci Code. You might also be interested to know that Brown has another book out called Angels & Demons featuring Robert Langdon which was published before Code. I have a copy here that I'm planning on reading soon. Seems like there's more books than time most days...