Mary Roach
Packing for Mars
Packing for Mars asks how humans can remain alive, capable, and psychologically intact beyond Earth. Mary Roach follows astronaut selection, confinement, weightlessness, motion sickness, impact survival, chronic bodily changes, reproduction, escape, toilets, and food to show that spaceflight is the redesign of ordinary needs under extreme constraints.
9 chapters
Spook
Mary Roach investigates whether anything of the self survives death, moving through past-life memories, attempts to locate or weigh a soul, mediums, electronic voices, hauntings, a contested will, and near-death experiences. The inquiry shows how to test striking claims against controls, ordinary explanations, and the limits of what an experiment can establish.
13 chapters
Stiff
Stiff examines what happens when human remains become tools for anatomy, forensic investigation, injury prevention, transplantation, and funeral practice. Its central question is how usefulness can coexist with consent, dignity, uncertainty, and grief, helping readers see why technical solutions to death are also ethical and cultural choices.
8 chapters