Book of the week: Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

(Norton, $27)

Mary Roach “takes us to places we don’t want to go—and then makes us glad we went,” said Daniel Dyer in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Never has this been truer of the witty, fearless science writer than in her latest work—a tour through the stretchy and sloshy recesses of our digestive system that jollies readers all the way from “teeth to tush.” However refined any particular culinary experience may be, she reminds us, the end product is the same material that repels people the world over. And yet the production of excrement is as vital to our bodily functions as food. “Reading her new book, you will simultaneously suppress a gag and gulp with gratitude.”

Indeed, Roach regales us with “countless revolting but fascinating factoids” during our journey to the colon, said Bee Wilson in The New Republic. Did you know, for example, that art preservers value human spit because it safely cleans fragile paintings? Or that men pass more gas, but women’s emissions are smellier? Or that Elvis went through life with acute constipation? “If you’ve never wondered, too bad; Roach is going to tell you anyway.” And just when you begin to tire of her gross-out anecdotes, the final chapter provides a very good reason for people to push past revulsion. Doctors have discovered that fecal transplants are an inexpensive, side-effect-free, and remarkably effective way of curing patients suffering from certain bowel infections. But, as Roach notes, no insurance company recognizes the procedure—more because of the “ick factor” than for any medical reason.

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“Gulp is a big leap forward for Roach,” said Janet Maslin in The New York Times. Her monosyllabically titled books have all manifested a love for strange science: Stiff examined corpses; Bonk surveyed contemporary sex research. But this latest proves to be “far and away her funniest and most sparkling book” because it contains no gimmickry: By simply thinking about the body and interviewing “the most oddball experts she can find,” she easily holds our interest. In the author’s cheery discussion of rectal smuggling among prison visitors, for example, she finds that this transport mode doesn’t stop at drugs: One inmate earned the nickname “Office Depot” for once packing his rectum with three binder rings, a pencil sharpener, and two boxes of staples. “Who but Mary Roach would know how to digest that information?”