05-13-13 : Mary Roach ... "Gulp. Open Up and Say "Awe" Reading is perhaps one of the most pristine acts any human can engage in. The words, the page, the thought transference that takes place, everything is untouched and untouchable. On the other end of the scale is digestion, the process by which we transform the touched into a very different sort of untouchable. In the middle, we can be glad to have Mary Roach, writing about the science behind digestion in 'Gulp.' Subtitled "Adventures on the Alimentary Canal," 'Gulp.' manages to use the grotesquerie of the human body to evoke laughter and eventually awe. Part of the awe should well be directed at the author, who manages to create a sublime combination of information and entertainment. Recent Commentary • Glennon Doyle Melton Suggests 'Carry On, Warrior' : Fighting for Life in the Too Much Information Age • Reasons Not to Leave the House, Reality Check : The Truth Hurts Edition: 'Down the Up Escalator' by Barbara Garson, 'The Wolf and the Watchman' by Scott C. Johnson,'The Book of Woe' by Gary Greenberg, 'Confessions of a Sociopath' by M. E. Thomas • Mario Guslandi Reviews 'An Emporium of Automata' by DP Watt : "...from the bizarre to the grotesque, from the baroque to the uncanny..." • Commentary Archive

Carry On, Warrior Glennon Doyle Melton Smart essays about life for actual, occasionally imperfect humans. Reviewed by Rick Kleffel Review Archive Bitter Seeds Ian Tregillis Reviewed by Rick Kleffel Hand Drying in America Ben Katchor Reviewed by Rick Kleffel An Emporium of Automata DP Watt Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

What is The Agony Column?

"He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals. "Dear me!" said he, turning over the pages, "what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual!"

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Red Circle