Replaceable You

Adventures in Human Anatomy

De: Mary Roach

Narrado por: Mary Roach

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025
A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Fall Book

From the New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy.

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?

In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?

Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a “superclean” xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell “hair nursery” in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International.

Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.

Mary Roach is a Rockstar

I am an anatomy nerd, and I love Mary roach. This book is above and beyond.
The new medical science in depth personalities, I love it all.

best on audio

Mary Roach's actual voice really makes her writing voice come through. I've read all of her books, but hearing her read one is a delight. she sometimes laughs at her own jokes (I mean that in the best possible way), and her manner helps you understand why so many people allow her to follow them around. and of course the book itself is fascinating, and any Mary Roach fan will love this one.

Joyous to listen to, Fascinating to learn

Joyous to listen to, easy to follow, and fascinating to learn about many complex inventions in a simple language.
You do not need to be a medical doctor or even a science student to enjoy this book. It is just f(U)antastic and fascinating exploration of the flashback and future of human organ transplantation and replacement. It dwells on the history of organ transplantation, including the ancient origins of Rhinoplasty in the Indian Subcontinent, as performed by Sushrutha, entertains you with some surprising stories behind organ replacements across various cultures, and thrills you with some intriguing real-world incidents in the field in modern science of organ transplantation/replacement. It provides an outline of the advanced genetic engineering used to use pigs' organs in humans, and at the same time, it makes you think about the deeper concepts and hardships in the field of organ replacement in a very lighter but inspiring way.

Interesting

4 stars - It was really good

The body is the most complex machine in the world and because of that you cannot easily replace what breaks. This book goes over various surgeries, research, and trials that are working to replace various parts of the body. Each chapter discusses a different topic of the body, like skin graphs, human and animal organ transplants, joint replacements, iron lungs, etc.

This book was fascinating and well researched. You could tell Roach had a good time visiting various places to learn about each of these topics and learn how to replace parts of the human body. What was surprising for some of these topics is how far the research still has to go or how quickly some of them are progressing. There is no linear line for all of them and it was just fascinating learning about all the different aspects of the body and what it takes to try and replace them.

Overall, Roach has presented another fascinating and well written book about the body and I highly recommend it, especially if you like learning about medical science and research.

TW: graphic depictions of medical content, animal experimentation and death,

not everyone's cup of tea

Mary Roach can do no wrong, in my book. I have read (and reread) most of her books, and anxiously await every new one. But while I have recommended her books to just about everyone i know, no one has been as enthusiastic about them as I am. my son DID love "Grunt" and "Packing for Mars", and bought the kid's version for his sons. I can't say her humor and topics are an acquired taste; no, i think you have to have some degree of morbid humor, a curious mind, and an appreciation for her humor. Mostly, one needs to be curious. I have a medical background, so the anatomy and bodily functions don't intimidate me, but i can see this being hard for lay people to take in. I love that she narrates her books (at least, the ones i've listened to, as opposed to have read myself), because you can hear where she wants to emphasize the point of her statement, especially the humorous parts. I am afraid she will either run out of subjects to write about, or decide to retire. this will be a sad day. i only gave it four stars for the story because there is no real story.....no plot, no character development.