Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

Entertainingly written exploration of ghosts, ectoplasm, mediums, and other paranormal phenomena. Roach, a thorough skeptic about all these, has a droll style of writing, but reader Bernadette Quigley's attempt to emphasize the drollness is exceedingly annoying, with sudden hushes to whisper volume, portentous pauses and shifts in tone, arch intonations, and the very bad accents another reviewer has mentioned. The performance was almost bad enough for me to ditch the whole book, but I persevered.

To preface this, let me say I have never written a review of anything before, but I feel compelled to do so now. I love Mary Roach's writing style and sense of humor! "Stiff," has been a favorite read, so I was thrilled to see other works by her available on Audible. Anxious for, what I thought would be an enjoyable experience, turned out to be torture. I am an easy-going person who normally can persevere until the end, but after the first two chapters, I couldn't take it any longer. The narrator ruined the experience - more eloquently described by previous reviewers - in such a horrendous way that I will waste this book credit. I will, however, download the book onto my Kindle and enjoy it, as I recommend you do, in the written form.

I really enjoyed Mary Roach's other books and seeing that I don't think I'm hard to please, I shrugged off the other comments about the narrator.
I was able to make through all of one hour before being utterly disgusted.

Ms. Quigley, please refrain from offering your services as a narrator anymore. Thanks!

Audible, could I have my money back? *aintgonnahappen*

Amazon, could you send me a hard copy of the book? *ka-ching!*

The book is mildly interesting, but the narrator ruined it for me. When she is reading in her natural voice, she reads well. But when she tries to inject an accent, or (worse yet) tries to sound as if she is a scientific professional, it’s so over-the-top, it ruins the book.

Very little current information... this book dwells on 19th century experiments.

No

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely loved Mary Roach's 3 other books available on Audible. She has a real talent for using narratives of her personal experiences to bring scientific and historical topics to life. I guess that's what I'd consider the first mistake that lead to the existence of this audiobook: the majority of "Spook" is simply not science (no matter what the psychics and ghost-hunters believe) and Roach's skepticism is never challenged in any interesting ways. In this case, the lens of her personal experience serves to deaden (sorry) the topics explored, because the fact that it's all garbage is a foregone conclusion, so why bother suffering through it with her? Certain sections (I'm looking at you, ectoplasm) are far too long already, and the author's attitude makes them even more tedious.

The second travesty here is the narration. When portraying everyone other than the author's voice, the narrator sounds like... like my drunken uncle doing impressions of family members after Christmas dinner, but with even more petty meanness. In a book where the author is already too dismissive of the subject matter to make it particularly interesting, the narrator does no favors by making every single person interviewed sound completely ridiculous. Ordinarily, the narrator's over-dramatic reading of Roach's delightfully deadpan writing style would be unfortunate on its own, but combined with all the other problems it makes this audiobook nearly valueless.

All in all, I wish I'd never downloaded this - although there is a moderate amount of interesting content - because the whole endeavor makes me think less of the author. I enjoyed her other books so much, it was almost like she was a friend - and now I've seen a side of her that I find a bit distasteful. She is very talented, but the message of the audiobook seems to boil down to "silly people believe silly things," and it doesn't strike me as a good use of anyone's time - either the listener's or the author's.

I thought this was an interesting read. She gives many examples of the possibility for our hope of an afterlife from the belivers point of view as well as from the skeptics. It is not really a book to convince you we do or don't go on after death but gives some compelling examples to support this and also explanations for how they could be misinterpreted. I personally like the book and found the readers presentation to be enjoyable. I also found it to be a good book for provoking thought.

Jeez! I avoided this book for years, frightened away by the moans and groans over Bernadette Quigley's reading. Yes, it is a bit odd. But it's not bad. Indeed, it's rather sweet. And heck, her accents are no worse than mine. Indeed, they're better. All my accents sound the same. And anyway, Mary Roach is always -- always! -- worthwhile. The woman is a national treasure. I can't wait to see what's next...

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.

Although the narrator of this book is phenomenal, and generally pleasant, she managed to make the tone of this book rather intentionally or unintentionally, patronising, and therefore amusing. I doubt the author had intended to take mockery this far. The professed content is intriguing, but execution left something to be desired. This is not a history book, but rather, a highly investigative journalistic in style. I give it three stars because although I am entertained and amused, the content and the structure definitely left something to be desired.

This might have been the worst purchase I have made yet from Audible. I'd give it negative stars if that were possible. I still like the idea of the book and maybe it would have been a better "read" in print - perhaps it just didn't translate well into the spoken format. The horrendous narrator didn't help either (is there anything more annoying that an American trying to fake an India accent?). I'd love to ask for my credit back, but it died like everything else associated with this horrendioma. Save your credit, save your ears, save yourself and don't buy this audiobook.