Spook by Mary Roach

What better way to follow up on a successful book about the trials & tribulations of dead bodies than to move onto the souls of the dearly departed.

A fun and interesting read. Similarly to her previous book, Stiff, Mary Roach examines current and past scientific studies, stories, reported cases and the like relating to seeing, weighing, measuring & general attempts to prove the existence of souls. All of this done through an inquisitive, skeptical and sarcastic lens that we all wish we had access to.

Ms. (Mrs.?) Roach's approach to her subject, as a non-believer in the existence of of her book's subject (I think), is one that I think can best be summed up as "Let me work my way through published history and current academia to learn all I can about my subject and see if I can make a better, more informed decision about it, or at least learn something on the way." Her chapters on the early 1900's devices built for weighing souls were hilarious and bravo to her for finding the descendants of her "Will From the Grave" story.

Looking forward to Bonk

Question remains if this one will show up on HBO (if it hasn't already)

Book can be found here (didn't get my copy from here, but I do get most of my books from Amazon):
http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Science-Afterlife-Mary-Roach/dp/0393329127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230518433&sr=1-1

1 down, 99 to go. Going to say I finished this early December.

To steal an old idea from David Fleming's weekly football column on ESPN.com (from about 3 years ago): This post was written listening to the sweet sounds of Al & John Live from San Diego