A review by cluckingbell
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

1.0

This was a painful listen. I enjoy some solid debunking as much as the next rube, but this was like if Dana Scully were a raging misanthrope with no real science background who got all her "knowledge" from Google searches. It's possible the audiobook reader conveyed even more smug contempt for the subject and pre-Google-era ignoramuses than Roach intended. It's possible the reader didn't really sell the humor (though contempt is not the best vehicle for humor, and the attempts at humor were too often undercut by overselling the joke, or by making a joke when the facts spoke for themselves). It's probable this extraordinarily shallow book is not the best introduction to Roach's work. But I have absolutely no interest in reading anything else by this author.