Book: Gulp
Author: Mary Roach
Published: 2013 (W.W. Norton and Company)
Pages: 327
Mary Roach makes science fun. I bet that is in 100% of the
reviews of this book. Because it’s 100% true. She’s got a humorist’s knack for
pointing out unexpected weird gaps between truth and expectations combined with
a true nerd’s thoroughness of obsession. Put that together and you have a very
enjoyable tour of the digestive system.
She focuses heavily on the front and back ends and makes me
envy her job by describing everything about her research travels – not just the
scientific bits about the experiments, or their contributions to human
existence and all that jazz, but also how unnerving it is to see her own spit
flying around in a centrifuge, or explaining why a professional
beer-quality-tester prefers to drink Bud Light above a lot of other things when
she has a choice, or how she got invited to a party with excrement-themed
snacks by a doctor.
It’s good science writing because it’s accessible. The only
reason you know about all the research Roach has done, as opposed to just
sitting you down and telling a yarn about your stomach off the top of her head
(so to speak), is she makes occasional self-depreciating jabs at how she’s the
only non-research scientist to subscribe to Colon Cancer Monthly, or whatever. And
it’s all infused with a sense of wonder tempered by a finely tuned sense of
fun. We all work like this so why be grossed out or snobby about it? Mary Roach
says there’s no reason to be, and I totally believe her.
Bookshelf!
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