Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you. Most of your time is spent lying down on your back. The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. I’ll quote the first paragraph of the introduction to give you a sense of Mary Roach’s style: She clearly understands the emotional difference between an anonymous cadaver and your beloved relative’s remains, but she tells the truth: one way or another, everybody’s molecules re-enter the planetary pool. Note that the author is irreverent, but in my opinion, not disrespectful. But if you like reading thrillers–particularly serial killer or medical examiner stories–you can handle some anatomic detail. (Which is quite different from believing in a soul and afterlife that’s fine, but before reading Stiff you’d better be convinced the soul leaves the body at the time of death.) Also, avoid this book if you’re squeamish forensic experiments on natural rates of decay are important but very stinky. If you attribute mystical/spiritual properties to cadavers, then this book is definitely NOT for you. That subject is death, or more specifically, dead bodies. Stiff is irreverent and funny about a subject normally fraught with reverence and rarely as funny as it could be.
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