Six Feet Over: Science Tackles the Afterlife

What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of you persist? What will it feel like? In search of answers, Mary Roach consults scientists, schemers, engineers, and mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She meets researchers studying reincarnation and out-of-body, near-death experiences, examines the last surviving sample of "ectoplasm" in a Cambridge University archive, and unearths the history of soul-seeking philosophers who rummage through cadavers and calves' heads. "Science writing doesn't get funnier or more human" (Marta Salik, Detroit Free Press) than Roach's engaging exploration of the final journey we'll all one day take.