Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

We'll be getting topical in October (which happens to be my favorite month, go go Libra power) with Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by author/researcher Mary Roach.

Amazon's consolidated information farm:
http://www.amazon.com...[masked]461?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188178683&sr=1-1

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Roach made an exceptional debut two years ago with Stiff?it might seem a hard act to follow. Yet she has done it again: after her study of what becomes of our mortal coil after death, she now presents an equally smart, quirky, hilarious look at whether there is a soul that survives our physical demise. Roach perfectly balances her skepticism and her boundless curiosity with a sincere desire to know. She ranges into the oddest nooks and crannies of both science and belief (and scientists who believe), regaling the reader with tales of Duncan Macdougall, a respected surgeon who weighed consumptives at their moment of death to see if the escaping soul could be measured in ounces, and of female mediums who, during séances, extruded a substance called ectoplasm from their private parts (she even examines a piece of alleged ectoplasm archived at Cambridge University). She goes to school to learn to be a medium, subjects her brain to electromagnetic waves to see if they induce the experience of seeing ghosts and joins a group trying to record sounds made by the spirits of the Donner party. The text is littered with footnotes: tangential but delicious tidbits that Roach clearly couldn't bear to leave out. She is an original who can enliven any subject with wit, keen reporting and a sly intelligence.

Come get your Spook on, whatever I mean by that.

NOTE: Location will be in the Ohio City / Tremont area.