Good Reads Recommendation

I had read most of Mary Roach's books, 'Bonk,' 'Gulp,' and 'Stiff.' It was ages ago, but I remember finding her easy meander through the obscure scientific arenas that affect us everyday fascinating. Particularly entertaining is her footnotes. Never miss a Mary Roach footnote. In one, she points out that the acronym of an organization that deals with bowl-shaped red wounds is SALSA. I had to actually go back up the page to figure out what she was talking about, and when I saw it, I grinned. Well, her latest is 'Grunt,' an examination of the research that goes into our military. In it, we find maggots saving our boys from chronically infected wounds, top brass underfunding penis-replacement surgery, and sketchy shark experts creating shark repellant. It ends with a note on military autopsies and the need for a wide view. Mary Roach makes each topic both gleeful and endearing. Anyone with a passing interest in scientific oddities has always found Ms. Roach a reliable producer, and this book is another example of just that.