| | Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife |  | Author: Mary Roach
Creator: Bernadette Quigley
Publisher: Brilliance Audio Unabridged
Category: Book
Buy New: $40.46
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Avg. Customer Rating:  110 reviews
Sales Rank: 1897784
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Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 6
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.4
Dewey Decimal Number: 129
ASIN: B00127OJHU
Publication Date: October 10, 2005
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Amazon.com Review
If author Mary Roach was a college professor, she'd have a zero drop-out rate. That's because when Roach tackles a subject--like the posthumous human body in her previous bestseller, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, or the soul in the winning Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife--she charges forth with such zeal, humor, and ingenuity that her students (er, readers) feel like they're witnessing the most interesting thing on Earth. Who the heck would skip that? As Roach informs us in her introduction, "This is a book for people who would like very much to believe in a soul and in an afterlife for it to hang around in, but who have trouble accepting these things on faith. It's a giggly, random, utterly earthbound assault on our most ponderous unanswered question." Talk about truth in advertising. With that, Roach grabs us by the wrist and hauls butt to India, England, and various points in between in search of human spiritual ephemera, consulting an earnest bunch of scientists, mystics, psychics, and kooks along the way. It's a heck of a journey and Roach, with one eyebrow mischievously cocked, is a fantastically entertaining tour guide, at once respectful and hilarious, dubious yet probing. And brother, does she bring the facts. Indeed, Spook's myriad footnotes are nearly as riveting as the principal text. To wit: "In reality, an X-ray of the head could not show the brain, because the skull blocks the rays. What appeared to be an X-ray of the folds and convolutions of a human brain inside a skull--an image circulated widely in 1896--was in fact an X-ray of artfully arranged cat intestines." Or this: "Medical treatises were eminently more readable in Sanctorius's day. Medicina statica delved fearlessly into subjects of unprecedented medical eccentricity: 'Cucumbers, how prejudicial,' and the tantalizing 'Leaping, its consequences.' There's even a full-page, near-infomercial-quality plug for something called the Flesh-Brush." While rigid students of theology might take exception to Roach's conclusions (namely, we're just a bag of bones killing time before donning a soil blanket) it's hard to imagine anyone not enjoying this impressively researched and immensely readable book. And since, as Roach suggests, each of us has only one go-round, we might as well waste downtime with something thoroughly fun. --Kim Hughes
Product Description
The best-selling author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers now trains her considerable wit and curiosity on the human soul.
What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario, and visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged through cadavers and calves' heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts, and the last surviving sample of "ectoplasm" in a Cambridge University archive.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 105 more reviews...
 Glossy, superficial take on post-STIFF existence November 2, 2005
93 out of 138 found this review helpful
Well, I guess it's a step up from the pop tabloid treatments we see all too much of. Chapters are allocated to separate subjects such as reincarnation, search for the physical evidence of the human soul, spiritualism, physical mediums, etc. Unfortunately, Ms. Roach seems to be far more intertested in milking wisecracks out of her "research" than she is in doing any heavy lifting, and the breezy, smartacre style wears out its welcome quickly. You can certainly tell she comes to the subject with a tabula rasa: she obviously never heard of Harry Price, much less other lesser-known parapsychologists. It's an entertaining read, but I couldn't recommend it as anything approaching what I had expected it to be: a sceptic's investigation into the survival of human personality after death. Think of it more as "Cosmo Travels the World in Search of Spooks, Giggles, and People With Funny Names".
 I was hoping for more. November 1, 2005
48 out of 77 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed "Stiff" - but seeing that I gave that 4*, I can only afford to give "Spook" 2...
I am disappointed with this one. I was really looking forward to reading it, but as another reviewer commented, there is so much filler, that the substance is lost.
Especially the chapter about mediums, there are pages and pages of wadding (written) about a bit of wadding (muslin)!
The space would've been better used discussing other mediums. Britain boasts several. It is an American book, but since a fair bit of research was done in the UK, Roach could've mentioned the 2 Dorises (Stokes, Collins).
There are omissions - why mention John Edward so briefly? Those of us outside the U.S especially, don't know as much about him as U.S. residents might. And if he's so famous, why not interview him?
And why nothing about spirit-, or automatic-writing?
What information was there was buried in amusing but overlong and over-frequent character/physical descriptions of those around the author.
There was far too much history - I'd rather have read about what's going on the modern day re. spiritualism and the paranormal.
Basically, it seems like after the success of "Stiff" Roach was commissioned to write a similar book with a quirky one-word title about a freaky subject (which, as she admits somewhere in the acknowledgements, she knew nothing about!).
I wonder whether she actually had any interest in it to begin with...
 Enjoyable although not quite as sharp as "STIFF" February 11, 2006
48 out of 54 found this review helpful
People frequently confuse a breezy style, humor and ability to entertain with being superficial. While Mary Roach's latest book isn't quite as compelling as "Stiff" it's an enjoyable journey one step beyond. When Roach is serious (which pops up between very funny quips)she asks some important questions about the afterlife, our perception of it, ghosts and reincarnation. Perhaps it's the subtitle that disappoints people but having read "Stiff" I knew what to expect. If you come to this book ignoring the subtitle (this skeptical humorist tackles the afterlife and science although more about that later with a sense of humor but doesn't quantify the afterlife with science herself).
Roach asks some penetrating questions with humor. For example, she discusses an author that discusses reincarnation, birthmarks and how a pregnant woman can see the corpse of someone. The soul of the slain man turns up in her child. Also, she discusses a pretty creative idea--emotional imprinting from an event that can leave birthmarks on the skin of the unborn creating a duplicate of a birthmark from the person whose soul has flown into the unborn child. She goes on a journey to investigate a family that claims their child has memories from a previous life and while going as an unbiased observer using humor and logic to deflate some of these unusual claims.
Yet she's always hopeful. She relates the story of a computer that is used for near death experiences. She discusses Professor Bruce Greyson's experiment in near death experiences using a computer with images that can only be seen if you were hovering below the ceiling. Patients that have had defibrillators put in have their hearts stopped to see if their defibrillators are working (they should restart the patient's heart). Many people claim to have seen the attempt to revive them floating above their body. If that's the case they should be able to see the computer screen and tell Greyson what images are on it. She also takes a look at cases involving ghosts and other related areas.
Roach focuses on the scientific approaches taken by various people to try and verify the afterlife's existence. This isn't a "science vs. faith" argument. Instead, this is an attempt to see if the scientific approach works or not in these various experiments. Roach asks some practical and hard questions about these various experiments, theories and researchers. The subject is more elusive here than in "Stiff" for obvious reasons. This isn't a book about faith. Roach is trying to find some solid basis for faith in the afterlife and that is going to continue to be challenging.
Roach discusses in her afterword that she starts all of her books in complete ignorence of the subject. Does that provide her with a sense of the impartial attitude that journalists need to write material like this? I'm not sure but it does allow errors, holes and mistakes to occur. It also means that she really doesn't have a whole lot to prove. Regardless of whether "Spook" is as balanced and informed as it should be Roach asks some provocative questions and tries to find answers. You may not be enlightened but you will be entertained and the questions that Roach asks are always interesting. While the answers don't always hold up to scrutiny Roach's journey to discovery is always entertaining.
Not as good as Stiff October 17, 2005
30 out of 37 found this review helpful
For me, this book was okay. The source of my disatisfaction is what caused one reviewer here to give the book 5 stars. The writing was beautiful, but never said much. I almost wonder if Roach was afraid to go any deeper than a superficial analysis, like she was holding back or holding out.
The information introduced is googleable and, in that sense, the book really doesn't add to the topic. It's a basic primer, that leaves you wanting more.
I also would have liked pictures. At one point, I fanned through the book hoping there would be pictures to go with the prose. There weren't and I really feel this book would've benefited from some visual aids.
The book is okay. The writing is beautiful, Roach has a gift for prose, but in this case, not for the subject.
 Another One Hit Out of the Park October 19, 2005
25 out of 28 found this review helpful
Whatever the topic or format, Ms. Roach brings to her work a wonderfully wry sense of irony. This book is no exception; it will keep you laughing and leave you wondering how we humans survive our own bizarre preoccupations and ambitions. Ms. Roach also has a unique gift of compassion and empathy, seasoned with rigorous skepticism, and is apparently completely without pretense. She gets quickly to the heart of any matter without ever losing heart or rubbing the noses of fools in their own folly.
This book is similar in format to her first book, Stiff; it is comprised of a series of chapters in which Ms. Roach looks over someone's shoulder as that person goes about business. In Stiff, we learned of the many ways cadavers are used; in Spook, we learn of attempts to validate the existence and nature of the soul, or some entity that endures beyond a single body's mortal life. While the subjects in Stiff were mostly to be admired for pursuing valuable science no matter how revolting, the subjects in this book are often far afield anything most readers would call science or, in some cases, reality. To appreciate the work of the denizens of Spook, one must value the subjects for their hearts and aspirations instead of appreciating their scientific contributions.
In Stiff, each chapter brought us to a new and different question of scientific process and ethics. In every new setting, a remarkable wealth of collateral information, fascinating asides, and thoughtful consideration illuminated the purpose and value of some individual's unique and arcane pursuit. Spook is similarly packed with information, all of it delightful and surprising. Due to the nature of the topic, the author's research took her to a far broader set of disciplines than just science and ethics. This is truly a work of cultural history and psychology as well as a study of how people use and abuse scientific methods.
Whether your background and affinities lean towards or away from science, this book will entertain and inform you. It is a delightful consideration of, and example of, the human capacity to explore, connect, hope, dream and laugh.
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