Person
Mary Roach's book recommendations
Key facts
- Mary Roach has recommended or discussed 7 books on podcasts, as of September 19, 2025.
- Mary Roach has talked about books on 2 podcasts, as of September 19, 2025.
- Those books came up in 3 episodes, as of September 19, 2025.
- The 2 books Mary Roach has mentioned in the most episodes, not counting Mary Roach's own, as of September 19, 2025: In a Sunburned Country and The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.
- The latest episode with a book mention from Mary Roach aired on September 19, 2025.
Updated
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Mary Roach appears on, in one place — not just one.
Mary Roach’s most recommended books
- In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
- The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals by E. P. Evans
Mary Roach is an American author specializing in popular science and humor. She has published eight New York Times bestsellers: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010), Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (2013), Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016), Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (2021), and Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy (2025). During her appearances on The Book Review, Roach discussed the research, reporting memories, and development behind her own popular science works, including Bonk, Gulp, and Stiff. She explained how wandering through the basement of the UCSF medical school library sparked the idea for Stiff and described investigating sexual physiology, dildo manufacturing companies, and surgical papers for Bonk. Additionally, Roach discussed meeting passionate food researchers in the Netherlands while working on Gulp, and she mentioned stumbling upon E. P. Evans's historical 1906 book, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, which served as an inspiration for aspects of her own research into unusual scientific and legal subjects.
Books recommended by Mary Roach
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Stiff
Stiff by Mary Roach is a popular science nonfiction book exploring the strange, fascinating, and historically significant uses of human cadavers in medical research and scientific progress.
Discussed“Stiff happened. The cadaavver element of it just happened because I was wandering through the basement of the UCSF medical school library.”
Where to get it
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Bonk
Mary Roach's popular science book Bonk takes a fascinating and humorous look into the scientific study of human sexual physiology and the historical attempts to understand it.
Discussed“The closest I got, I think, was with Bonk, which is a book about the study of sexual physiology. Not gender, not behavior, but how do these bits and pieces work?”
Where to get it
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Gulp
Gulp by Mary Roach is a work of popular science that humorously and thoroughly investigates the biology, mechanics, and cultural history of the human digestive tract.
Discussed“I don't think it has ever happened that I've thought maybe gulp, like the elementary canal. I had a sense that that tube between the nose and the ass was it's like there's different rules in there and it's a very weird space.”
Where to get it
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Fuzz
Mary Roach's Fuzz investigates how the natural world intersects with human law through wild animal behavior and wildlife crime.
Discussed“the case that I talked about in fuzz was this was 1659 in a province of Northern Italy”
Where to get it
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In a Sunburned Country
Discussed“Bill Bryson's writing not a specific book of his although in a sunburnt country is a wonderful mix of just everything that you would want to know about Australia and I was this book came out as I was on my way to Australia”
Where to get it
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Spook
Spook by Mary Roach is a non-fiction science book that investigates historical and modern attempts to find scientific evidence of the afterlife and the human soul.
Discussed“this my favorite study from spook my second book was the University of Virginia psychologist who studies near-death experience had this idea”
Where to get it
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The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals
Discussed“and then stumbled onto that weird 1906 book the criminal prosecution and capital punishment of animals”
Where to get it
Books by Mary Roach
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Spook
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Bonk
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Packing for Mars
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Grunt
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Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011
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Gulp
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Fuzz
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Media qualifications and their relevance & usefulness to students and employers
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Six Feet Over
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My Planet
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Animal Vegetable Criminal
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Packing for Mars for Kids
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Stiff
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mary Roach Loves Writing About Weird Science | The Book Review | 2025-09-19 | 7 |
| Randall Kennedy on 'Say It Loud!' | The Book Review | 2021-09-24 | 2 |
| Mary Roach on Disgust, Death, and Danger (Live at Mason) | Conversations with Tyler | 2017-10-18 | 4 |
Other mentions (2: passing, ad reads, own books)
“i won't go into the details because they're a little gross you'll have to read the book forget in the details spook by mary roach”
“so I did things like well I did a a middle- grade adaptation of packing for Mars”