Spook

Science Tackles the Afterlife

By: Mary Roach

Narrated by: Bernadette Quigley

Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

"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 laptop?"

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. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario, and visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged through cadavers and calves' heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts, and the last surviving sample of "ectoplasm" in a Cambridge University archive.

©2005 Mary Roach (P)2005 Brilliance Audio

Heed our advice

Please please don't download this book. The narrator is by far the worst I have ever encountered. Her "one woman show" ranges from terrible to downright terrible with each new scientific impersonation of what she thinks professionals sound like. I love Mary Roach and I loved this book. Do yourself a favor and never listen to it. Did nobody give this a once over before they sent it out?

Interesting enough story

I tend to enjoy Mary Roach’s writing, and fine get research interesting and fun. In this book though, she writes at the beginning she came into this with an open mind and no set beliefs. This is obviously false. That’s fine, but she is not an objective writer in this case.

I personally didn’t like the narration. The reader did not do well at the accents she chose, so it came off gimmicky and awkward. Also, at times her accents and general modulation meant it was hard to hear /understand her.

Narrator thought this was a Monty Python skit

The over the top accents were literally cringe worthy. I love Mary Roach’s work but found this narrator’s approach in conflict with the subject matter. Other Roach works where the author narrates are vastly superior.

Great book...Meh narration

An examination of life after death as only Mary Roach can provide. Funny, insightful and entertaining. My only complaint is the Narrator's insistence on attempting the accents of the various people Roach quotes. Not only were they poorly rendered, to the point of caracature, but distracting and unecessary.

I couldn't listen to it.

Would you try another book from Mary Roach and/or Bernadette Quigley?

I enjoy Ted talks by Mary Roach and I admire and respect her approach to science, writing and life. What little I did listen to was intriguing and I think I would enjoy this book, but I cannot listen to it.

Has Spook turned you off from other books in this genre?

No.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Apologies for the rough review but the narrator has an over-dramatic style and often seems surprised by the ending of a sentence - therefore it is read with a great dramatic emphasis that would be distracting even if it were correct, but it is incorrect and that is frustrating. To the point that I turned it off. This is just the sort of book that I enjoy listening to, but it is truly too difficult.

Do you think Spook needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No.

Another wonder by Mary Roach

Mary Roach has outdone herself again blending copious amounts of science with her unique outlook and humor which keeps even the most daydreaming readers engaged with the subject matter. Her skepticism sneaks in between the lines, and the frustration of lack of evidence annoys, but she teaches wonderfully, and with vivid description so that the reader feels he has seen the afterlife with his own eyes. Thank you Mary, I couldn't put it down, finished in less than a day; its that good

one of the most obnoxious possible readers.

book was great! Provocative, funny, voicey. The kind of thing I look for in a Roach book.

Inexplicably, however, anytime the reader relays dialogue, she uses melodramatic voices and genuinely awful accents. I think this is aiming for a wink-wink-nudge-nudge tone but the result is just irritation. It's over the top in a really distracting way.

doesn't ruin the experience, but it doesn't help.

Again - Great Book, Horrid Narration

Aside from the worst English accents since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, the narrator reads to us like someone reading to six year olds; with too much EMPHasis on WORDS to create a FALSE sense of DRAMA. Avoid or your teeth will grind to dust.

Narrator painful

Couldn't finish because the narrator was so painful to listen to. A very dramatic annoying voice

Not so spooky

Narrator was good but the story wasn't nearly as "spooky" as I was hoping. There seemed to be a very limited storyline relating to the afterlife.