Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife Author: Mary Roach
	Book Information Publisher: W. W. Norton Company Book Type: Hardcover Members Wishing: 57 Rating: 9 ISBN-13: 9780393059625 - ISBN-10: 0393059626 Publication Date: 10/10/2005 Pages: 288

In STIFF, Mary Roach examined what happens to the body when a person dies. Now she takes the next logical step, and undertakes a humorous, skeptical, but ultimately hopeful search for verifiable scientific evidence of the afterlife and the soul, studying historical accounts and investigating current research into reincarnation and near-death experiences, and weighing or measuring the soul (on a scale, with X-rays, with quantum physics). She also examines a piece of "alleged ectoplasm" (it's actually regurgitated cotton cloth) stored at the Cambridge University Library, enrolls in a seminar for mediums, and goes ghost-hunting.

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Roach made an exceptional debut two years ago with Stiff—it might seem a hard act to follow. 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 perfectly balances her skepticism and her boundless curiosity with a sincere desire to know. 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). 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. The text is littered with footnotes: tangential but delicious tidbits that Roach clearly couldn't bear to leave out. She is an original who can enliven any subject with wit, keen reporting and a sly intelligence.