If you read my blogs, you might get the sense that I appreciate people who take a light and sometimes sarcastic approach to life. Mary Roach does this masterfully while still being educational. In this book, she focuses on science’s search for a soul and the afterlife. She goes into the field with researchers currently working on the survival question and chases down some of the more interesting research from previous decades. There is a section of the book in which she visits the Cambridge University Library to examine “alleged ectoplasm” that is every bit as cringe worthy as you can imagine.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. It is fun and educational. There are experiments discussed in this book that I had not been aware of previously. Mary Roach does not try to sway the reader in one direction or the other but instead invites the reader on her journey to explore the question of the soul.

Pros: Fun and educational. It’s an easy read for anyone interested in life after death research.

Cons: If you don’t like sarcastic people, you may not like this book.