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Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

by Mary Roach (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2003

    $6.88
Synopsis

This book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about what happens to bodies after they die. From a plastic surgeon's convention, where the doctors test out the latest nip n'tuck techniques on the recently expired, to the quest for the perfect crash test dummy, Mary Roach tracks down the dead and the people who spend their days with them. For 2000 years human cadavers have been at the forefront of scientific exploration. From testing the efficiency of the guillotine, experiments to weigh the soul, calibrating crash test dummies, to advances in modern medicine such as heart transplants, the deceased body has been a silent partner to many of the major advances in the understanding of ourselves.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 304
 Edition: First Edition
 Publisher: Viking
Published: 03 Jul 2003
ISBN 10: 0670912174
ISBN 13: 9780670912179

Media Reviews
As a book about dead bodies and how they are used by the living, the subject matter is macabre. 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. While plenty of the lurid stuff about dissection, body snatching, airplane and car crash victims is not actually new, it is convenient to have it all rescued from the twilight status of urban myth and dressed respectably between smart hardcovers. This is not, emphatically, a book about death and dying. It is about what is left behind once the business of living is done with. The author is able to write about her subject with a certain clinical detachment and black humour, but this is still not a book for the recently bereaved or for anyone looking forward to a long stay in hospital. And it is definitely not for any one planning to leave a body to medical science.
Author Bio
Mary Roach is a journalist. She has written for Salon, Wired, GQ, Discover, Vogue and the New York Times Magazine. This is her first book.