Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

If you believe the subject of cadavers should be treated somberly under all circumstances, you'll want to take a pass on this one. If, on the other hand, you have an irreverent sense of humor and believe that there some sort of humor in almost every slice of life (and death), then you're going to love this book. Informative, well-written, witty, and done in a mostly tasteful way (it is about cadavers after all), Stiff is a fresh book that explores a topic and a world that most of us never glimpse.

When I was a student, in 1984, I took a summer class in which I prepared cadavers for the next semester's anatomy and physiology class. It was one of the best summer's of my life. Those memories will carry me to my grave, so to speak. One of the cadavers that I worked on was a physician (in his former life), one was a woman, and one was a man of no particular distinction. I am now a nurse of some 24 years. My experiences then still reverberate to this day. This book addresses all of the feelings and emotions that I experienced at that time. It is an amazing, humorous, light-hearted, yet serious work, that captured the essence of what it means to be a cadaver. No small feat. Bravo, Mary Roach. Well done.

I wouldn't have thought it possible to treat this sometimes unpleasant topic with equal parts humour and respect. Mary Roach succeeds admirably in both aspects. I listened to this book almost straight through, with my responses ranging from cringing to laughing out loud.
Shelly Frasier is an excellent casting choice for this book as her voice has a sultry tone to it. It is not clinical at all.

Highly recommended if you're not squeamish.

This was actually a very interesting and well researched book & and was generally a lot of fun to listen to. The reader was fantastic, too. Her "smoky" voice was compelling, without being overly dramatic. Be prepared, though, for the stories of brutality that some (I hope not many) "scientists" (and I use the word loosely, at least with some of them as described here)brutalized (and still brutalize, I know) defenseless animals, in the name of "science". The people that I am describing truly, in my opinion, have cold hearts and no empathy for other living things. The book, as a whole, was top notch and very enlightening. The "experiments" are just part of the story, I guess.
Overall, I highly endorse this audiobook.

The author is incredibly witty and clever. She writes like an old friend sharing a funny store with you in a coffee shop. I've bought it for 2 friends already, and the feedback from them has been just as positive as my experience with it.

Gosh! Who knew corpses could be so fun and fascinating?! Mary Roach has gone to the end and back on topics you could not even imagine that deal with the dead. In one sentence, she writes on how the dead have improved the lives of the living. Seriously, we learn how greatful we should be that Aunt Cloe donated herself to the good of human kind when she passed on. If you're squeemish about death, Roach is completely disarming with her lively and comedic style. Nothing vulgar or horrifying here, just the simple truth with hilarious side commentary.

Loved this book! I've even read it at least three times now.

Funniest non-fiction I've ever read! This is a fantastic read. To those who criticized the "unnecessary" gruesomeness... it's about dead people!! Come on!! The author does a fine job respectfully making light of something people are way to squeamish about. I highly recommend this book. It was a fun read, and educational at the same time - just the sort for which I was looking.

Although this book verges on the macabre at some points, with extremely graphic descriptions of, say, bodies rotting in an empty lot, I found it fascinating. I liked the many uses for cadavers, the descriptions of the science of various specialities, and the history of anatomical and cadaver studies. The author has a quirky sense of humor, and many of her quips are things I would have thought myself. I also liked the narrator's voice, which was pleasant and not too serious. Unfortunately, neither the narrator nor the producer ensured that the narrator pronounced all the words correctly. Almost every chapter had at least one mispronunciation that jarred me. Among them "Oriana Fal-ah-see" (Oriana Fallaci - which I admit is not a common name), "Rooters" (Reuters), and "apokethary" (apothecary - which she pronounces correctly a few lines later.) This book has by far the largest number of mispronunciations of the seventy or so I've listened to. It is nonetheless an interesting, informative and strangely enjoyable listen.

I highly recommend this book. I couldn't stop listening. It is a serious book about a serious subject, but it does lighten the darker, if at times, horrific elements of being the dearly departed. Shelly Frasier does a good job of transmitting the author's sense of humor and life--and does not telegraph a "cynical" point of view; rather she captures the dark, sometimes humorous, sometimes bizarre and often ironic issues related to death which, after all, is everyone's fate.

Not for the faint of heart, this book examines in detail possible uses and methods of handling the human body a life after death I had never considered. The author deftly hanbles the subject with surprising humor. The narrator was excellent.

I enjoyed this book.