Original Publication Year: 2013
Genre(s): Non-fiction, Biology
Series: NA
Awards: None
Format: Audio (from Audible.com)
Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
As with most Mary Roach books I went into this book not
knowing that I had any interest in the gastrointestinal system. As usual she
quickly convinced me that in fact not only was I interested but obsessively
fascinated. She specializes in taking a
science topic and digging into it, uncovering all the weird but still often
relevant details. She is also seemingly
incapable of being embarrassed by her curiosity and will pursue things like how
astronauts poop in zero gravity to the bitter end. It is all so well researched and delivered
with such a wry wit that I find it impossible not to get sucked in to every
single detail.
So the Alimentary Canal?
Utterly fascinating and seemingly designed for a Mary Roach type
treatment. After all the whole process
of digestion and waste production is messy, frequently embarrassing and mostly
taboo for cocktail party conversation.
However Mary Roach had me wanting to spout various interesting facts
like the fact that when babies were offered a range of healthy foods, before
cultural bias had kicked in, some of their favorites were bone marrow and
sweetbreads (pancreas of a calf or lamb).
There are people that have volunteered as part of a research project to
smell and describe farts. There are
people researching and dissecting all the various gases and compounds of
farts. Roach delves deeply into all
aspects of the digestive system, from the mouth to the colon, without flinching. I think
she may be at her most witty as well.
The reader of the audio book is fine but I didn’t love
her. I feel like the reader should be
someone with a more mature, dryer voice for some reason. Someone who can really do the sly wit
justice.
FINAL VERDICT: This
is probably my next favorite Roach offering next to Stiff – all the information
flows together, is relevant and has just the right amount of detail and Roach
really lets her humor shine. Four out of
Five Stars.
Who, besides Mary Roach, would you like to have at your next cocktail party?
Both the Read Harder and Eclectic Reader Challenges have a Microhistory category. I'm not sure Gulp technically fits the bill but it does in spirit - very focused on a specific and somewhat odd object and it includes plenty of history about the study of said object.
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