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STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS ~ BY MARY ROACH

101 ways to use a dead man's body, written intelligently and very engagingly by journalist Mary Roach. Features exhaustive research and showcases the author's determination to get to the bottom of the topic. it is also compelling argumaents in favor of donating one's body to science.

The book is off to the rolling start with visits to plastic surgeons who need practice cadavers, the changing attitude of medical schools when dealing with the dead. There's also a trip to the research facility where a cadaver is subjected to crush forces to measure how much damage car impacts can inflict on a human body. It also explore the realm of the "beating heart cadaver". organ donors kept alive after brain death. My personal favorite was the trip to a body farm where various cadavers are studied in their differing states of decomposition. Roach's lively writing keeps the pace going, even when reading becomes a an uphill struggle in the latter chapters; readers who manage to finish the book will feel the sense of accomplishment, maybe even closure.
Great reading for pragmatists who don't need to know if there's a life after death, but the possibilities can happen to your body after you've departed the physical realm.