Stiff

At the end of chapter 3, "Life after Death," Mary Roach writes"

Life contains these things: leakage and wickage and discharge, pus and snot and slime and gleet. We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.

That is in essence a partial apologia for writing a book about death and the after-death in case you were wondering why anyone would want to write such a book. Metaphysical reasons aside, the author also considers the ethical implications and dilemmas in donating one's cadaver to scientific research, a self-less act if ever there were one.

Just to lay it out for you, there are three or so basic options for what do do with yourself after you die: 1. You can donate your body to science and have it subjected to various unpleasant experiences that you don't want to know about before you die and your family won't want to know about after the fact. 2) So you might prefer a traditional, embalmed, open-casket funeral and burial - until you read about the process and the ultimate futility of it - eventually, "the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out," and...well, you know the rest of the song, or: 3) Cremation, and of course Roach includes a rather detailed description of the sequence of events that occur in a body subjected to extreme temperatures necessary to turn a sac of water into a pile of ashes.

Still, all in all, I think I prefer the cremation route. I may be OK with donating organs to save other people, but I don't want my body lying around being poked, prodded, dissected, getting a face lift, or otherwise experimented on.