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Gulp
Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
348 pages
A hilarious, unapologetically gross, and deeply fascinating joyride through the hidden mechanics of the human body.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like taking a wildly entertaining field trip with the smartest, funniest, and least squeamish tour guide imaginable. The pace is brisk and episodic, bouncing effortlessly from bizarre historical anecdotes to modern-day laboratories with an infectious, wide-eyed curiosity. It wraps you in a mood of quirky fascination, inviting you to laugh out loud while learning about the most taboo and unglamorous functions of the human body. The prose is conversational, witty, and heavily peppered with footnotes that are just as entertaining as the main text. It is a delight for anyone who loves weird science, possesses a healthy sense of humor about bodily fluids, and wants to emerge with a newfound respect for their own internal plumbing.
- Mood
- quirky
- lighthearted
- fascinating
- slightly gross
- Tone
- wry
- inquisitive
- irreverent
- enthusiastic
- humorous
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- the wonders of the human body · breaking taboos · scientific curiosity · bizarre medical history
- The writing
- Conversational and razor-sharp, packed with hilarious footnotes, vivid analogies, and an infectious enthusiasm for the bizarre.
- The arc
- Begins with a sense of squeamish curiosity and transforms into delighted, awe-struck appreciation for our most taboo bodily functions.
- Who it's for
- Curious minds with a strong stomach who love learning weird science facts and appreciate a healthy dose of sophisticated toilet humor.
Content notes
- scatological humor
- bodily fluids
- medical procedures
- historical animal testing
- descriptions of excrement
About the book
The irresistible, ever-curious, and always best-selling Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside.
“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of―or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists―who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.
Description from Open Library.
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