![]() ![]() ![]() She is an original who can enliven any subject with wit, keen reporting and a sly intelligence. Spook Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach Genre: Non Fiction Published: 2005 Pages: 311 Est. The text is littered with footnotes: tangential but delicious tidbits that Roach clearly couldn't bear to leave out. Depending on the study guide provider (SparkNotes, Shmoop, etc.), the resources below will generally offer Spook Science Tackles the Afterlife chapter summaries, quotes, and analysis of themes, characters, and symbols. She goes to school to learn to be a medium, subjects her brain to electromagnetic waves to see if they induce the experience of seeing ghosts and joins a group trying to record sounds made by the spirits of the Donner party. She ranges into the oddest nooks and crannies of both science and belief (and scientists who believe), regaling the reader with tales of Duncan Macdougall, a respected surgeon who weighed consumptives at their moment of death to see if the escaping soul could be measured in ounces, and of female mediums who, during séances, extruded a substance called ectoplasm from their private parts (she even examines a piece of alleged ectoplasm archived at Cambridge University). Roach perfectly balances her skepticism and her boundless curiosity with a sincere desire to know. Yet she has done it again: after her study of what becomes of our mortal coil after death, she now presents an equally smart, quirky, hilarious look at whether there is a soul that survives our physical demise. ![]() Roach made an exceptional debut two years ago with Stiff. ![]()
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