At a time when people refuse to believe in science, facts, reason, or the experts, a new book by science writer Mary Roach is just what her fans need right now. Especially since her newest, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) seems like it could be her funniest one yet. But as she explains in the following interview, while Fuzz has her usual mix of information, insight, and humorous observations, it’s not like watching videos of bear stealing food.
In the thirteen years since she released her first book, Stiff — which explained how scientists have used cadavers to advance human understand of the body…and plastic surgery — writer Mary Roach has applied her patented mix of intellectual curiosity and situational humor to explain how scientists study such topics as sex (2008’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Science And Sex), eating (2013’s Gulp: Adventures On The Alimentary Canal), and what waits for us after we die (2005’s Spook: Science Tackles The Afterlife) in a way that makes these science books as entertaining as they are educational. But like her 2010 tome Packing For Mars: The Curious Science Of Life In The Void — which took a different approach, and looked at how scientists were figuring out how to help astronauts survive their trips to the cosmos — her new book Grunt: The Curious Science Of Humans At War (paperback, hardcover, digital) is also more about what scientists do than how they study a certain topic.