Wounderfully compelling and strange. I loved every chapter and learned a few things in the process. Excellent read for anyone interested in biology, death, or the human body. Not graphic in its depictions, but not for the faint of heart (or stomach) either. The jokes are tasteful without suger-coating the subject. The author asks all the questions you know you would ask if you could and delivers the answers with an irrevant wit.

Trade paperback received in the mail from Bowling Green, Ohio, USA, through Swappingtons.com.

From Publishers Weekly
"Uproariously funny" doesn't seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach, a Salon and Reader's Digest columnist, has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty. From her opening lines ("The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back"), it is clear that she's taking a unique approach to issues surrounding death. Roach delves into the many productive uses to which cadavers have been put, from medical experimentation to applications in transportation safety research (in a chapter archly called "Dead Man Driving") to work by forensic scientists quantifying rates of decay under a wide array of bizarre circumstances. There are also chapters on cannibalism, including an aside on dumplings allegedly filled with human remains from a Chinese crematorium, methods of disposal (burial, cremation, composting) and "beating-heart" cadavers used in organ transplants. Roach has a fabulous eye and a wonderful voice as she describes such macabre situations as a plastic surgery seminar with doctors practicing face-lifts on decapitated human heads and her trip to China in search of the cannibalistic dumpling makers. Even Roach's digressions and footnotes are captivating, helping to make the book impossible to put down.

I really liked this book, although it's far different from my usual reading matter -- chick lit. I can't remember the last time I read a book with a bibliography. (Does Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation have one? Because I've got a copy sitting on Mt. TBR.)

To donate your body for medical research:
Australia
Ireland
UK
US

To donate your body for plastination, visit bodyworlds.com.

For information on organ and tissue donation in the US, visit organdonor.gov.

RELEASE NOTES:
Left in a New Haven Advocate newspaper box on the corner of York Street and South Frontage Road--one block north of the 20 York St. entrance to Yale-New Haven Hospital, but on the opposite side of the street. Click here for a map.

To donate your body to the University of Connecticut (UConn) School of Medicine, visit www.uchc.edu/giving/body.html. I couldn't find any information online about donating your body to the Yale School of Medicine.

Thanks for finding this book
Please write a journal entry letting all its past and future readers know that this book was found. (It's anonymous, and you don't have to join BookCrossing to do it.) Then read and keep this book, give it to a friend, or even release it for someone else to find—just like you did. Happy reading!

Caught today at 4:30 on 10/28/05. I'm gonna read this over the weekend and then i'll think of a good place to release it! my first catch!