You can debate the list (and there is a growing discussion at nytimes.com doing just that), but three Booknoise books made it, and we’re pleased as holiday punch about that. Want to know what they are? Spook, The Survivor, and Garbage Land.
“A diligent, cheerful account of efforts to learn whether science can show that there is (or isn’t) life after death.”
“Roach proved her fine sense of humor in 2003’s strangely amusing and
uncreepy Stiff, her affectionate look at human cadavers. Here, she
delves back into death, searching for scientific proof of an afterlife.
She heads to rural India to interview reincarnation subjects, handles a
piece of alleged ectoplasm at Cambridge University’s library, and
enrolls in an English school for mediums. Along the way, she asks all
the familiar questions that plague the death-obsessed: ‘What happens
when we die? Does the light just go out and that’s that…? Or will
some part of my…me-ness persist?… What will I do all day? Is there
a place to plug in my laptop?’ Alas, she doesn’t find the answers. But
Roach is such a smart and breezy companion that it’s enough to watch
her realize that in the end she might not need them.”
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach debuts this week on The New York Times bestseller list.
Open-minded author travels the world in search of our souls
A review of Spook from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
“Like “Stiff,” this book is a witty exploration of a subject that doesn’t easily lend itself to lightness.”