Packing for Mars

She knows how to, knows how to crank 'em out.

That's funny you say that, 'cause I'm gonna finish, uh, Writers and Lovers by Lily King, and then I think I'm gonna read Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.

So I'll follow up-

We're both gonna be in space.

Yeah, I'll let you know.

Packing for Mars is nonfiction, so perhaps I'll be able to bring you some important facts.

I'll keep you posted.

Mm.

I'm Ben Kieffer.

My guest this entire hour, you know her, Mary Roach, the New York Times best-selling author of so many interesting and humorous books: Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Packing for Mars, Gulp, Grunt, Fuzz [laughs], eight books that have made her one of the most recognizable voices in popular science.

Of course, known for combining rigorous, on-the-ground reporting with that irrepressible sense of humor we know so well.

Her latest book is Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, and in it, get this, she travels from, uh, a Boston burn unit to a Chinese pig farm to a Kansas City bedroom housing with one of the last working iron lungs in the country, and, uh, asking the overarching question in this book: how close is modern medicine really to rebuilding the human body, and what gets lost or goes wrong [laughs] along the way? I spoke with Mary Roach last week.

Spook, on the science of the afterlife.

Bonk tackled sex research.

Packing for Mars: The Human Side of Space Travel, and Gulp: The Digestive Tract.

Then came Grunt on military science and Fuzz on animals that break the law.

And that's time.

Mary Roach's eight New York Times bestsellers are Stiff, Bonk, Packing for Mars, Gulp, Grunt, Spook, Fuzz, and Replaceable You.

She also has a book called My Planet, which is all essays, I think.

Personal stuff.