About the Book
America s funniest science writer (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies."
Review :
[A] merry foray into the digestive sciences .Inexorably draws the reader along with peristaltic waves of history and vividly described science. --Brian Switek"
A delicious read and, dare I say it, a total gas. --Kate Tuttle"
A witty, woving romp of a book Roach is a thoroughly unflappable, utterly intrepid investigator of the icky. --Chloe Schama"
As engrossing as it is gross. "
As probing as an endoscopy, Gulp is quintessential Mary Roach: supremely wide-ranging, endlessly curious, always surprising, and, yes, gut-wrenchingly funny. --Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)"
Far and away her funniest and most sparkling book, bringing Ms. Roach s love of weird science to material that could not have more everyday relevance. . . . Never has Ms. Roach s affinity for the comedic and bizarre been put to better use. . . . Gulp is structured as a vastly entertaining pilgrimage down the digestive tract, with Ms. Roach as the wittiest, most valuable tour guide imaginable. --Janet Maslin"
Gulp is about revelling in the extraordinary complexities and magnificence of human digestion. "
Letting this brilliantly mischievous writer, for whom no pun is ouch and no cow sacred, dip her pen into the font of all potty humor must have seemed even riskier than her previous excursions into corpses (Stiff), the afterlife (Spook), sex (Bonk) and outer space (Packing for Mars). But dip she did at one point she put her whole arm into a cow s belly and came up with another quirkily informative pop-science entertainment in Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. --Jeffrey Burke"
Mary Roach put her hand in a cow s stomach for you, dear reader. If you don't read Gulp, then that was all for naught. Plus, you'll miss out on the funniest book ever written about guts. --Carl Zimmer, author of Evolution: Making Sense of Life and Parasite Rex"
Never before has the process of eating been so very interesting . After digesting her book, you can t help but think about what that really means. --Micki Myers"
Once again Roach boldly goes where no author has gone before, into the sciences of the taboo, the macabre, the icky, and the just plain weird. And she conveys it all with a perfect touch: warm, lucid, wry, sharing the unavoidable amusement without ever resorting to the cheap or the obvious. Yum! --Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works and The Better Angels of Our Nature"
One of my top criteria for pronouncing a book worthwhile is the number of times you snort helplessly with laughter and say, Wow! Did you know that ... before your long-suffering spouse throws a book at you from across the room. My personal spouse says that, in this department, Gulp takes the cake. --Adam Woog"
Relentlessly fun to read. --Bee Wilson"
Roach is a gift to all those unsung researchers with weird curiosities, the people who tell us things we hadn't thought to ask: The teams who reveal that we like crunchy foods that snap at speeds of 300 meters per second and produce a crunch that reaches 90 to 100 decibels; the anthropologist who swallowed a shrew whole (with a little tomato sauce) to demonstrate what remains after digestion; the scientists who put windows into cows to see into their rumen; the researchers who study spit; investigators who sniff icky things; and specialists who examine poop. When Roach talks about her visits to various laboratories, I picture her received as a celebrity, the one person who gets it, the outsider who will teach the world to appreciate the distant exurbs of human curiosity. At this she succeeds admirably. --Jenni Laidman"
There is much to enjoy about Mary Roach her infectious aw for quirky science and its nerdy adherents, her one-liners... She is beloved, and justifiably so. --Jon Ronson"
With the same eager curiosity that she previously brought to the subjects of cadavers, space, and sex, the author explores the digestive system, from mouth to colon. "
You ll come away from this well-researched book with enough weird digestive trivia to make you the most interesting guest at a certain kind of cocktail party Go ahead and put this one in your carry-on. You won t regret it. --Amy Stewart"
There is much to enjoy about Mary Roach--her infectious aw for quirky science and its nerdy adherents, her one-liners... She is beloved, and justifiably so. --Jon Ronson
[A] merry foray into the digestive sciences....Inexorably draws the reader along with peristaltic waves of history and vividly described science. --Brian Switek
A witty, woving romp of a book... Roach...is a thoroughly unflappable, utterly intrepid investigator of the icky. --Chloe Schama
As engrossing as it is gross.
Mary Roach put her hand in a cow's stomach for you, dear reader. If you don't read Gulp, then that was all for naught. Plus, you'll miss out on the funniest book ever written about guts. --Carl Zimmer, author of Evolution: Making Sense of Life and Parasite Rex
Relentlessly fun to read. --Bee Wilson
You'll come away from this well-researched book with enough weird digestive trivia to make you the most interesting guest at a certain kind of cocktail party...Go ahead and put this one in your carry-on. You won't regret it. --Amy Stewart
Starred review. Filled with witty asides, humorous anecdotes, and bizarre facts, this book will entertain readers, challenge their cultural taboos, and simultaneously teach them new lessons in digestive biology.
Starred review. Roach's approach is grounded in science, but the virtuosic author rarely resists a pun, and it's clear she revels in giving readers a thrill--even if it is a queasy one. Adventurous kids and doctors alike will appreciate this fascinating and sometimes ghastly tour of the gastrointestinal system.
Starred Review. For all her irreverence, Roach marvels over the fine-tuned workings and 'wisdom' of the human body, and readers will delight in her exuberant energy, audacity, and wit.
Fans of lively writing will be delighted by the newest monosyllable from Mary Roach. Once again Roach boldly goes where no author has gone before, into the sciences of the taboo, the macabre, the icky, and the just plain weird. And she conveys it all with a perfect touch: warm, lucid, wry, sharing the unavoidable amusement without ever resorting to the cheap or the obvious. Yum! --Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works and The Better Angels of Our Nature
