writes exquisitely about the excruciating….wildly informative and vividly writtenĭoes weird science quite like, and this time, she takes on war. Roach’s prose is a triumph-an engaging blend of anecdote, research, and reflection. Mary Roach’s latest bit of brilliance….As meticulously researched, beautifully written, and disturbingly funny as her previous books… Grunt examines the science behind war, as well as the researchers who are leading the charge in these state-of- the-art developments. Grunt ranks high in the Roach repertoire. Roach is a tenacious investigative journalist with an appetite for the unappetizing. takes on the challenges the military faces to keep its fighters safe and healthy with her trademark flair (and zingy footnotes). Our most consistently entertaining science journalist…Roach goes where other writers wouldn’t dare….And her search produces images-a kind of technopoetry-that are hard to forget. Even the tiniest minutiae count on the battlefield, and Roach leads us through her discoveries in her inimitable style. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.Ī mirthful, informative peek behind the curtain of military science.įrom the ever-illuminating author of Bonk and Stiff comes an examination of the science behind war. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries-panic, exhaustion, heat, noise-and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. 'America's funniest science writer' ( Washington Post) Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.

Grunt mary roach review