(This review cross posted from our media review site)

In this non-fiction research piece, Mary Roach puts together 10ish chapters about all of the different ways that people have brought science to studying the soul, ghosts, reincarnation, near-death experiences, and the afterlife.

Although not quite as giggle-a-minute as Stiff was, overall I found Spook to be fascinating and funny. I had no idea how much honest science has been applied to the subject over the last hundred years, including research by institutions like Cambridge University, Oxford, University of Virginia, and many others. As well as countless amateur enthusiasts.

As usual, Mary's writing is funny, critical, and insightful. If I had a complaint, it is that in the first couple of chapters she seems reluctant to highlight (and mock) the obvious lack of rigor in the work of the reincarnation researchers, and the early attempts to compute the weight of the soul.

But later in the book she warms up to the comedy of the charlatans and enthusiasts who are found around seances, claims of "ectoplasm", and audio-tape ghost hunting.

Recommended!