Spook cover art

Spook

Science Tackles the Afterlife

 Preview

Audible Standard 1-month free trial

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo + applicable tax after 30-day trial. Cancel Anytime
Try for $0.00
Compare plans

Spook

Written by: Mary Roach
Narrated by: Bernadette Quigley
Try for $0.00

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $18.45

Buy Now for $18.45

"What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that - the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?"

In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario, and visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged through cadavers and calves' heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts, and the last surviving sample of "ectoplasm" in a Cambridge University archive.

©2005 Mary Roach (P)2005 Brilliance Audio Biological Sciences Philosophy Religious Studies Science Sociology Spirituality Writing, Research & Publishing Guides Paranormal Parapsychology Near-Death Experience Haunted Psychic

You may also enjoy...
Grunt cover art
Grunt Written by: Mary Roach
Gulp cover art
Gulp Written by: Mary Roach
Bonk cover art
Bonk Written by: Mary Roach
My Planet cover art
My Planet Written by: Mary Roach
Stiff cover art
Stiff Written by: Mary Roach
Fuzz cover art
Fuzz Written by: Mary Roach
The Lost Continent cover art
The Lost Continent Written by: Bill Bryson
The Secret History of Christmas cover art
The Secret History of Christmas Written by: Bill Bryson
Not Too Late cover art
Not Too Late Written by: Gwendolyn Bounds
Replaceable You cover art
Replaceable You Written by: Mary Roach
Quackery cover art
Quackery Written by: Lydia Kang, and others
Fierce Self-Compassion cover art
Fierce Self-Compassion Written by: Kristin Neff
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most Relevant
The narration was poor - it was like she was reading a child's book. I felt like she was mocking people when she did accents.

Poor narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found the reader to be extremely obnoxious when she did accents. Especially as some “foreign” accents came off as borderline offensive.

It just took me out of the narration each time because the accents were so BAD and extremely obnoxious! Would have preferred the audio book much more if she didn’t do ridiculous accents.

The readers accents were extremely distracting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Narration was overdone which made it less pleasant to listen to … accents were offensive. better read by author

Topic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I like Mary Roach's approach to these subjects, which got me through this book.

The narrator has a good voice and reads well, but when quoting people, her impressions are overdone to the point of clownishness. Where she chooses to mimic accents, she even crosses the line into offensiveness.

Entertaining content, strange performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm a couple of hours in and returning it although I'm curious about the rest. The narrator puts on a mocking accent whenever quoting a doctor in India. It's annoying and offensive enough to have made it unlistenable for me. I'm surprised the publisher and author would not have exercised better judgment in having the material read in such a manner.

Annoying Narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews