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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Toe tags with a larger purpose!


Okay, the cover got me. I needed something to read for the beach a couple of years ago, and romance novels not being my thing, grabbed Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers on a lark. Yes the subject is rather macabre, but Mary Roach presents various essays, and tales of how the human body is used post-mortem, with irreverent, but not ill-placed humor. It opens with an array of human heads in supermarket aluminum lasagna pans! (I will leave that there- you will have to read to find out more). It's oddly comforting to know our bodies can be useful after death, rather than taking up square footage as another embalmed unit of coffin-enclosed landfill. Nevertheless, I was a little shocked by what I read - I had no idea there were so many options in the afterlife! As Roach opened each chapter with an innovative use of corpus de homo sapien, I tried to envision my body taking the place of  one of her featured cadavers. I can't say any of the scenarios appealed to me! I've loaned this book out so many times, I eventually lost my copy. Hope who ever has it, passes it on. This book will evoke a "oh my gosh, I had no idea" reaction!" Informative, entertaining, and most of all humbling.

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