-
Stiff
- The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 8 hrs
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Publisher's summary
For two thousand years, cadavers (some willingly, some unwittingly) have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.
In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.
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Editorial reviews
Critic reviews
- Alex Award Winner, 2004
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- By Mel on 04-05-13
By: Mary Roach
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Heart
- A History
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As cardiologist and best-selling author Sandeep Jauhar tells in The Heart, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ.
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Fascinating Insight
- By Ironcharles on 10-27-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
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Healing Hearts
- A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon
- By: Kathy Magliato
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of fewer than a dozen female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group - those surgeons who perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who also calls herself a wife and mother.
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Healing Hearts
- By Jean on 01-14-12
By: Kathy Magliato
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Shocked
- Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead
- By: David Casarett M.D.
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Not too long ago, there was no coming back from death. But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has become just another serious complication. As a young medical student, Dr. David Casarett was inspired by the story of a two-year-old girl named Michelle Funk. Michelle fell into a creek and was underwater for over an hour. When she was found she wasn't breathing, and her pupils were fixed and dilated. That drowning should have been fatal. But after three hours of persistent work, a team of doctors and nurses was able to bring her back.
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Dead vs. Sincerely Dead
- By Gillian on 06-24-16
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The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth
- And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Morris
- Narrated by: Thomas Morris, Ruper Farley
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the 19th century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled.
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Boring Toilet Humor
- By Nemo on 01-30-20
By: Thomas Morris
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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The Demon in the Freezer
- A True Story
- By: Richard Preston
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The first major bioterror event in the United States - the anthrax attacks in October 2001 - was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a number-one New York Times best seller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
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Pretty interesting listening in a horrific way
- By S A on 09-19-03
By: Richard Preston
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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
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Severed
- A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
- By: Frances Larson
- Narrated by: Reay Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, anthopologist Frances Larson here explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.
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Good narrator
- By Caitlin kestell on 04-27-24
By: Frances Larson
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King of Hearts
- The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery
- By: G. Wayne Miller
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.
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Loved every minute
- By Brian on 02-05-08
By: G. Wayne Miller
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Tell Me Where It Hurts
- Humor, Healing and Hope in my Life as an Animal Surgeon
- By: Dr. Nick Trout
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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From the frontlines of modern medicine, Tell Me Where it Hurts is a fascinating insider portrait of a veterinarian, his furry patients, and the blend of old-fashioned instincts and cutting-edge technology that defines pet care in the 21st century. Dr. Trout takes the listener on a vicarious journey through 24 intimate, heartrending hours in his life.
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So close, yet not quite.
- By ButterLegume on 04-18-13
By: Dr. Nick Trout
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Flu
- The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
- By: Gina Kolata
- Narrated by: Gina Kolata
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.
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overexcited
- By Marilyn on 07-23-03
By: Gina Kolata
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Under the Knife
- A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
- By: Arnold van de Laar, Andy Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Rich Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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From the story of the desperate man from 17th-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room. What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell, or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery?
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Why did a surgeon need a fast horse?
- By India Clamp on 10-18-18
By: Arnold van de Laar, and others
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Blood and Guts
- A History of Surgery
- By: Richard Hollingham
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making limb transplants, face transplants, and a host of other previously undreamed-of operations possible. But getting here has not been a simple story of medical progress. In Blood and Guts, veteran science writer Richard Hollingham weaves a compelling narrative from the key moments in surgical history. We have a ringside seat in the operating theater of University College Hospital in London as world-renowned Victorian surgeon Robert Liston performs a remarkable amputation in 30 seconds - from first cut to final stitch.
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I love this book!
- By Kristin on 08-25-19
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A wonderful read!
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The footnotes
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Loved it So Much I Bought it After Reading it Free
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As new forms of lie detection gain momentum in the present day, Tremors in the Blood reveals the incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph, through gripping true-crime cases featuring explosive gunfights, shocking twists, and high-stakes courtroom drama. Touching on psychology, technology, and the science of the truth, Tremors in the Blood is a vibrant, atmospheric thriller and a warning from history: beware what you believe.
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The Chick and the Dead
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Using the most common postmortem process as the backbone of the narrative, The Chick and the Dead takes the listener through the process of an autopsy while also describing the history and changing cultures of our relationship with the dead. The book is full of vivid insight into what happens to our bodies in the end. Each chapter considers an aspect of an autopsy alongside an aspect of Carla's own life and work and touches on some of the more controversial aspects of our feelings toward death.
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Dull
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My Planet
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Follow New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach - but be careful not to trip - as she weaves through personal anecdotes and everyday musings riddled with her uncanny wit and amazingly analytical eye. These essays, which found a well-deserved home within the pages of Reader's Digest as the column "My Planet," detail the inner workings of hypochondriacs, hoarders, and compulsive cheapskates. (Did we mention neurotic interior designers and professional list makers?) For Roach, humor is hidden in the most unlikely places, which means that nothing is off limits.
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Narrator drove me crazy
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Filled to the brim with far-out facts, this wickedly informative narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog takes us on a fascinating journey through an astonishing new reality. Blending humor and journalism in the tradition of Mary Roach, acclaimed science reporter Erika Engelhaupt investigates the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe.
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Feels like old school Discovery channel
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-23
By: Erika Engelhaupt
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Working Stiff
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Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. With her husband and their toddler holding down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation-performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, and counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking listeners behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple.
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Great story - but not for the faint of heart!
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By: Judy Melinek MD, and others
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Boys Enter the House
- The Victims of John Wayne Gacy and the Lives They Left Behind
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As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called “sex murderers” who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s.
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What we really needed to know about the Gacy murders.
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Packing for Mars
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Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? Have sex? Smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour?
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know - and More
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By: Mary Roach
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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
- Big Questions from Tiny Mortals
- By: Caitlin Doughty
- Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
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- Unabridged
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In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge of the body and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to 35 distinctive questions posed by her youngest fans. In her inimitable voice, Doughty details lore and science of what happens to, and inside, our bodies after we die. Why do corpses groan? What causes bodies to turn colors during decomposition? And why do hair and nails appear longer after death?
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There is just something with Caitlin Doughty...
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By: Caitlin Doughty
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All That Remains
- A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
- By: Sue Black
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop, and part no-nonsense but deeply humane introduction to the reality of death in our lives. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller fans, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all.
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I wanted a science book about forensics. I got a mostly-memoir instead.
- By A Customer on 11-29-19
By: Sue Black
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From Here to Eternity
- Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
- By: Caitlin Doughty
- Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body. Grandpa's mummy has lived in the family home for two years, where the family has maintained a warm and respectful relationship. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls) and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage.
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Caitlin has done it again
- By Shaun on 10-03-17
By: Caitlin Doughty
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The Disappearing Spoon
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- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
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Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
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Great Book, Great Narration, But...
- By Henny Button on 09-18-10
By: Sam Kean
What listeners say about Stiff
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-28-18
I want my cadaver to go to a body farm!
This book was great! I couldn't stop listening. Mary Roach was able to present, what could have been, very dry information in a very comical but respectful way. I was excited for each new character & adventure the new cadavers would take me on.
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- Israel Ponce
- 10-24-18
Misleading title; Western/Christian bias
The book's first chapter is about cadavers used for medical research, past and present, and the rest of the chapters that I could make it through mentioned cadavers at the beginning and then talked about brutal ways that people can die (automobile accidents, plane accidents, Jesus' crucifixion, "bleeding heart" cadavers for organ transplant, etc.). After that first chapter, there was very little about cadavers vs. areas of interest that may have at one point used cadavers to solve some problem, but Roach focused more on the gory realities of dying.
I was particularly thrown by the chapter on Jesus' crucifixion, in which a cadaver was used at one point to help understand how he died on the cross - a myth we, as readers, were expected to take as historical fact and to have interest in.
As well, a native peoples were described by their colonizers as particularly "savage" and necessary of more lethal guns, which Roach did not challenge as racist. Finally, passing mention was made - jokingly, euphemistically - of women and children being molested by doctors while under anesthesia, and of cadavers in general being molested, without a longer, careful consideration of this practice.
Not the book for me, and not what I thought it was going to be.
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- ashley faircloth
- 06-06-21
Phenomenal book!!
This book was not only informative and thought provoking it was funny! I appreciated that because the subject is sometimes a little much, even for a morbid RN like me. There was a light-heartedness woven in while maintaining respect for the subject. I loved this book so much!!
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-23-20
A new look on your body after death
I love this book! The narration is perfect! It’s funny in the right way without disrespect to any person, dead or alive. I hope this book with open more minds to medical donation of their bodies after death. That you Mary for this enlightening read! I throughly enjoy it! Thank you Shelly for your perfect performance of this read!
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- Amy Starkey
- 09-26-16
Fascinating topic
Loved all the insight. Every gritty detail was amazing. The decomposition chapter was both gross and engrossing (pun intended).
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- Kate
- 08-01-15
Holy corpse!
This was so interesting to listen to! It was easy to understand and pack full of information that makes you look at your body and the dead in a whole new light. Will read/ listen to more by Mary Roach soon.
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- Meghan
- 09-03-12
Simply amazing
We will all die and our bodies will be useless to us. Mary Roach, with respect and humor, explores the ways cadavers have improved day-to-day living. But Stiff is also a book about what happens to our bodies when we die and the options for disposal of our remains. Burial? Cremation? Compost? You may change your mind after this book. It's the most interesting and entertaining book I've read.
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- Jeanne
- 12-01-13
Takes the Gravity Out of Graves!
What made the experience of listening to Stiff the most enjoyable?
Quite enlightening without making me shudder. Just about the time I'd think I might find it hard to listen to certain details, the author adds sensitive humor, I'd laugh, and continue on reading.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
A subject that could have been rather sickening was made to be fascinating, enjoyable, and even downright humorous at times.
Have you listened to any of Shelly Frasier’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I haven't listened to any other Frasier's narrations. But in this book I found it excellent and very appropriate. Made the "reading" of the book on this subject even more enjoyable and tolerable.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
The diverse uses of dead people. Found the info about the historical views of dead bodies, cremation, and embalming particularly fascinating.
Any additional comments?
Made me want to eat more healthily so I won't be available for use for awhile!
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- Heather
- 01-22-12
It was good
Would you listen to Stiff again? Why?
Yeah I would, Im sure I didn't catch everything..
What did you like best about this story?
It was really interesting things I didn't know..
Have you listened to any of Shelly Frasier’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I really enjoyed listening to Shelly Frasier..... I will loook for her again!
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- T A B
- 02-17-15
Life begins and ends and then...
Would you consider the audio edition of Stiff to be better than the print version?
Does Not Apply
What did you like best about this story?
It was very informative and straight forward as you suspect a person dealing with Cadavers might need to be.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Never thought really about the fact that we're all mostly liquid and when it's all over that liquid has to go somewhere. If not exposed to a place that can evaporate away the liquid.. there you are a bunch of goop basically.
Any additional comments?
This was a recommendation by my daughter. I am very happy to have listened to it. There is so much to learn in so many venues of life.. and after life I suppose.
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