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Few of us realize what strange wet miracles of science operate inside us after every meal. In her trademark style, Mary Roach investigates the beginning, and end, of our food.

A look inside the world of forensics examines the use of human cadavers in a wide range of endeavors, including research into new surgical procedures, space exploration, and a Tennessee human decay research facility.

Explores the science of keeping humans healthy and focused in the extreme environments of war, drawing on interviews with doctors, trainers, and weapons testers to illuminate how soldiers are conditioned to survive traumas.

The author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers?...

Roach shows how and why sexual arousal and orgasm can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to make the bedroom a more satisfying place.

Told in alternating voices, teenagers Lucy and Audrey investigate a town full of secrets, a family full of mystery, and an abandoned amusement park where people keep turning up dead.

"Required reading for anyone with a head."—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz

"[The Headache] weaves together history, biology, a survey of current research, testimony from patients, and an agonizing account of Zeller's own suffering. . . If there's a lesson here, it's that pain resists mastery, but understanding, however incomplete, can offer its own form of relief."—New Yorker

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"From the author of The Science of Monsters, this engaging scientific inquiry provides a definitive look into the elements of mystical places and magical object--from the philosopher's stone, to love potions to the oracles--from ancient history, mythology, and contemporary culture. Can migrations of birds foretell our future? Do phases of the moon hold sway over our lives? Are there sacred springs that cure the ill? What is the best way to brew a...

"James Nestor's BREATH meets Mary Roach's GULP in a fascinating tour of our most essential sense for perceiving the world around us-and the story of how it became our most neglected. Smelling is one of the most natural things we do. We take over 20,000 breaths a day, interacting with a host of scents with each one. Smell is also one of our most sensitive and refined senses; only dogs surpass our ability to perceive scents in the animal kingdom. Yet,...

Based on a true story about 73-year-old Alvin Straight who embarks on a dangerous and emotional journey to make amends with his 75-year-old brother Lyle before his brother dies. Alvin can no longer drive a car because of his eyesight and has to walk with 2 canes, but he climbs aboard his 1966 John Deere lawnmower and drives the 260-mile course from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wis.