Roach - Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

Science writing doesnt get funnier or more human than this.

Marta Salij, Detroit Free Press

Ms. Roachs gift for facetiousness serves her well here. Spook is dependably witty, especially when it ventures far into the ether. And it is populated by vividly evoked oddballs. Ms. Roach makes herself a wry, enjoyable character throughout the books escapadesa clever investigator and a thoroughly entertaining, if skeptical, tour guide.

Janet Maslin, New York Times

Funny and smartsince shes a scientist at heart, she also lasers through the smoke and mirrors.

People

First, theres her wit and stylistic brio. From the clever dedicationto her gift for terse summationto her genuine humilityRoach is a clear and versatile writer. She has a sharp eye for detail that demonstrates her traditional journalistic skillsbut she delivers her findings in ultracontemporary tones. She has a huge heart, a strong sense of empathy for the oddball, and shes willing to go to great lengths to find and report stories from the hinterlands of understanding.

Floyd Skloot, Chicago Tribune

Roach is a wonderfully vivid writer[with] a keen eye for the perfect detail, an ear for the zinging quotation and a finely tuned sense of the preposterous. A celebration of the wide, occasionally crazy spectrum of human pursuit.

Kate Zernike, New York Times Book Review

Slyirreverentand downright witty. Roach wields the scientific method and her skeptical mind like surgical tools, cutting away at myth, pseudo-theory and madness until all that remains is fact. In the end, believers and non-believers will be satisfied by Roachs conclusions. Reading Spook is like attending a lecture by a professor who is equal parts Groucho Marx and Stephen Jay Gould, both enlightening and entertaining. Roach makes learning about anything, be it decomposing bodies or the possibility of a verifiable afterlife, pleasurable.

Dorman T. Schindler, Sunday Denver Post & Rocky Mountain News

This is Roach at her best.

San Francisco Magazine

A sharp-eyed supernatural history.

Cathleen Medwick, O Magazine

Funny, inquisitive and uncowed by experts, shes the general readers ideal emissary to the arcana of serious science. Roachs writing has what science has so far failed to find: a divine spark.

Malcom Jones, Newsweek

Investigative reporting has no lighter, more irreverent spirit than Mary Roach. What lets Spook rise above the dry survey of (mostly inconclusive) scientific investigations it could have been is Mary Roachher lively and distinctive style, or perhaps more accurately put, her attitude. Roach is funny, fair-minded, impartial and endlessly curious. Spook is enormous fun.

David A. Walton, Pittsburgh Union-Tribune

Spook is nothing if not amusing. Roach heads into a mire of ghostly and laboratory episodes with robust humor.

Nora Seton, Houston Chronicle

Oh, had Roach only been my high school science teacher. Spook is filled with fascinating characters, wacky experiments, and Roachs accessible scientific reporting paired with comic relief and gentle insight.

Brooke Gilbert, Amazon.com

Roach is a self-described skeptic, but one with an open mind, a sense of adventure and a ready quip. All of this makes her an amiable and entertaining guide as she traverses several continents to look for scientific proof for the great beyond.

Megan Harlan, San Francisco Chronicle

Alas, she doesnt find the answers. But Roach is such a smart and breezy companion that its enough to watch her realize that in the end she might not need them.

Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly

As fascinating and thorough as her research may be, the greater tale lies in the people: The mediums, the mystics, the I-want-to-believers, the scientists, pseudo and for-real. Roach has a genius for portraiture, and she can bring the oddest people to hilarious life without a hint of condescensionher oddball, incandescent personality radiates from her prose.

Arthur Salm, San Diego Union Tribune

Spook is filled with some mind-blowing ideas that will make you glad youve got an open mind.

Chris Watson, Santa Cruz Sentinel

Roach brings to Spook a lightness and a sense of humor that, happily, smooth the morbid edges of the proceedings she describes. The most refreshing thing about Spook is that Roach herself is a skeptic, guiding a skeptics tour. What evidence she does come across, therefore, becomes all the more compelling.

Priya Jain, Salon

Short of the Ultimate Trip (the one with the light and the pearly gates), its about as entertaining a journey out of the realm of the living as anybody could want.

Donna Bowman, The Onion

Her biting wit is omnipresent from the start. This is one fantastically enjoyable book.

curledup.com

For all Roachs skeptical and often hilarious accounts, she is an eager volunteer and ready to accept evidence if evidence there be. Throughout, she is critical and witty [and] truly deft handling of the (mostly) daft.

Kirkus Reviews

She has done it again. [Roach] now presents an equally smart, quirky, hilarious look at whether there is a soul that survives our physical demise. Roach perfectly balances her skepticism and her boundless curiosity with a sincere desire to know. An original who can enliven any subject with wit, keen reporting and a sly intelligence.

Publishers Weekly

Roach is dogged in her approach. GrippingRoachs witty asides liven up an already interesting and unusual read.

Booklist

Science writer Mary Roachs wit and flair for vivid storytellinghave earned her a loyal readership, and her new book will only cement it.

Ruminator Review

Its a fabulous read, both a comic and a serious investigation of the history of sances, mediums, spirits and discarnate voices. All of a sudden, with Spook , the field of the paranormal is bust-a-gut funny. Spook is a comic romp through a mix of history and the current practices of a particular culture.

Monica Drake, Sunday Oregonian

Roachs humorous scoffings will make even the most adamantly-believing readers chuckle. No matter what you believe, pick up a copy of Spook .

Vail Trail

Spook is a hilarious look at misadventures in paranormal research. In the sharp-witted world of Mary Roach, the answer is inconsequential. The interesting part is the question itselfand the eccentric characters doing the asking. Surreal, fascinating, at times absurd and always hilarious, Mary Roach may not reveal the street address of our final destination, but in Spook she makes it sound less like a morgue and more like a comedy club.

Vince Darcangelo, Boulder Weekly