Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

I read this immediately after [b:Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void 7237456 Packing for Mars The Curious Science of Life in the Void Mary Roach https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1290480157s/7237456.jpg 8159756] - high on a newly discovered favorite author. I think Reading the two quite so adjacently resulted in a less favorable view of Stiff - there is an almost completely replicated chapter between the two discussing the use of cadavers to simulate forces on an astronaut's body during spaceflight, and the voice and humor is nearly identical between the two books. That being said, Stiff was still quite good, perhaps objectively the superior book as Roach covers a very broad range of subjects. She again excels at covering all angles of a subject. For instance, when covering the history of medical cadavers, she comments on the setup of modern anatomy classes, ceremonies respecting cadaver donors, the history of graverobbing for the purpose of providing anatomic cadavers, the history surrounding specific graverobbers as well as specific professors using their services as well as the theories about human anatomy during each period and how these changed over time using knowledge learned through dissection.