Mary Roach discusses Gulp, Live at Politics and Prose.

Mary Roach Discusses Gulp, a Tour of the Human Digestive Tract

Mary Roach Discusses Gulp, a Tour of the Human Digestive Tract

Today's best authors.
April 11 2013 3:24 PM

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Mary Roach discusses her new book about the human digestive system, Gulp.

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Listen to author Mary Roach discuss her new book, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal:

Andy Bowers Andy Bowers

Andy Bowers, the creator and executive producer of Slate podcasts, is the co-founder and chief content officer of Panoply.

Author Mary Roach at home September 21, 2007 in Oakland, California.
Author Mary Roach at home in California.

Photo by David Paul Morris

Mary Roach prides herself on exploring places that make us uncomfortable. Her first book, Stiff, chronicled what happens to corpses after we die. When I interviewed her in 2008 about her book on sex, Bonk, she shared footage of her and her husband having intercourse. (Trust me, it’s the most G-rated sex tape you’ll ever see.) Her latest book, Gulp, takes us to places we depend on for our very lives but that most of us would prefer not to see: our mouths, stomachs, and intestines. Listen to Roach’s April 6 talk at Politics & Prose, in which she ponders questions like “Why would we be repulsed by spitting into our own bowl of soup, when the same soup comes into contact with the same saliva in our mouths?”

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