American · b. 1959
Books for a Better Life Award
Mary Roach is an American popular science writer whose books investigate the science of the human body and its less glamorous processes with meticulous research and sustained, deadpan wit.
Mary Roach is the funniest science writer working in America, which is not a backhanded compliment — her comedy is inseparable from her method. Each book takes a scientific subject that is either taboo, gruesome, or both, investigates it with genuine rigor (she reads the primary literature, interviews the researchers, goes to the labs and the test sites), and reports it with a deadpan wit that makes the material both more accessible and more affecting than a straight science account would be.
Stiff (2003) is her debut and still her best-known book: what happens to human bodies donated to science. The range is comprehensive — crash testing, surgical training, forensic investigation, body farms — and the tone walks a line between comedy and genuine respect for the people who donate their bodies and the researchers who use them. Packing for Mars (2010) investigates the actual science of sending humans into space: what zero gravity does to the body, how astronauts eat and sleep and manage bodily functions, the psychology of confinement. Gulp (2013) traces the digestive tract from mouth to the other end with the same exhaustive curiosity.
Her books are popular science in the best sense: they make readers care about the science by making them laugh at the research process, and the laughter doesn’t diminish the substance.
by Mary Roach
What happens to human bodies donated to science — surgical training, crash testing, forensic decomposition research, ballistics testing, and the specific history of what cadavers have contributed to human knowledge. Rendered with Roach's characteristic meticulous research and deadpan wit.
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by Mary Roach
The actual science and logistics of sending human beings into space — what zero gravity does to the body, how astronauts eat and use the toilet, the psychology of confinement, the history of space medicine research, and why Mars is significantly harder than the moon.
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by Mary Roach
The science of the human digestive tract from mouth to the other end — saliva, stomach acid, intestinal bacteria, fermentation, gas, and the specific history of what researchers have learned by investigating each component of the alimentary canal.
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by Mary Roach
Mary Roach investigates the science of sex — from the Victorian researchers who conducted the first systematic studies to modern laboratory work on arousal, anatomy, and dysfunction. She attends research sessions, interviews scientists, and reads the primary literature with the same deadpan curiosity she applies to corpses and astronauts.
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by Mary Roach
Mary Roach investigates the science behind military research — the labs, researchers, and experimental programs working on problems of survival in combat. Chapters cover uniforms that resist bacteria, the acoustics of IED blasts, the psychology of diarrhea in the field, and the science of keeping soldiers alive in increasingly hostile conditions.
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