TOW #21 IRB Post 2: Stiff by Mary Roach

            Stiff By Mary Roach was a fantastic read that I enjoyed immensely. She was able to capture a morbid topic and make it into a fascinating book.  It is easy to tell that Roach did extensive research before writing this book and underwent the usual journalist undercover approach in certain situations. Roach set out

to educate and entertain her audience with her knowledge of the little known world of human cadavers, and she most definitely succeeded. She was able to achieve her purpose through the use of her own anecdotes on the topics. Roach immersed herself in the world of the dead, which allowed her to tell stories about the subject ultimately making the whole topic more relatable. In one case, in her chapter about cannibalism, Roach traveled to a small town in China that reportedly had a case of brothers who were adding dead body parts into the food of a local restaurant. Roach traveled all around the town and will the help of a translator was able to debunk the article about the forced cannibalism. By including this story she was not only able to entertain the audience with her unusual trip but also educate the audience with her investigative information that she found on her journey. Another thing she was able to accomplish with the addition of this anecdote was increasing her credibility. It would have been incredibly easy to just include the article she found in the book and present it to the audience as fact, but instead she flew to a foreign nation to get to the bottom of the information. This book appealed to me for the same reason that it probably appealed to the rest of her audience, because it was different. Never before have I seen someone tackle a difficult topic such as this with the grace that Roach was able to. The book was able to satisfy the audience’s interest in the world of the dead without crossing the line of being insensitive or vulgar. I loved this book with all my pumping heart, and I firmly believe that I left this book feeling completely entertained as well as educated on a new topic. I don’t think I will ever find a book quite like this ever again