Author Mary Roach to Make Appearance for Park Day School Fundraiser , 3/3

Literary sensation Mary Roach, author of the New York Times best-sellers Stiff, Spook, Bonk, and the new Packing for Mars, will join award-winning columnist Jon Carroll in an evening of conversation 7:00pm, Thursday, March 3, 2011 at Park Day School, 360 42nd Street, Oakland. The popular science writer and humorist, whose topics have included surprising and bizarre facts about death, the afterlife, sex, and living in space, will enjoy an open chat with one of the Bay Area's most beloved columnists, in a benefit for the financial assistance programs at Park Day School.  Tickets ($30) can be purchased online at www.parkdayschool.org, or by calling 510-653-0317, ext 103. 
 
Freelance writer and humorist turned accidental science journalist, Mary Roach likes to ask the questions others wonder but are too polite to ask: How fast do cadavers rot? Has anyone really talked to a ghost? Can fetuses have an org*sm? (Can dead people?) Her debut book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, came about when she noticed the extreme popularity of her Salon.com columns dealing with the macabre subject of dead bodies. Greeted as "Uproariously funny" by Publishers Weekly and "Unexpectedly side-splitting" by Entertainment Weekly, Stiff describes chapter by chapter the wonderfully bizarre uses to which bodies (and body parts) are used by scientists, transportation specialists, and others.  A hands-down hit, Stiff  was followed up by another best-seller, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife in which the author traveled to India, England, and points in between, consulting scientists, mystics, psychics, and kooks, to get the widest possible look at beliefs on life after death. Roach also enrolled in training to become a medium, endured electromagnetic brain waves to enhance the ability to view ghosts, and joined a group seeking to record sounds made by spirits of the Donner party.

  Roach followed up death and the afterlife with the ever popular subject of sex, creating another national best-seller in Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.  In her third book, Roach plumed obscure scientific research, some of it centuries old, taking her readers into the finer points of erectile dysfunction among polygamists, penis cameras, relative organ sizes and enhancement devices, and dozens of other subjects rarely discussed in polite company. Her most recent book, Packing For Mars, explores life in outer space and all the ramifications of living where humans are not meant to survive. Again Roach asks the impolitic but irresistible questions, including, What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? What if you die up there? How do you live for a year without a shower? The New York Times called it "As startling as it is funny."
 
Mary Roach is a Bay Area resident, who worked part time writing press releases for the San Francisco Zoo before becoming a contributor to a variety of publications including  Sports Illustrated, Vogue, Discover, Outside, National Geographic, New Scientist, Wired, GQ, and The New York Times Magazine. She was a regular columnist for Readers Digest and Salon.com.
 
Jon Carroll is the current winner of the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.  Carroll attracts an avid and passionate following for the column he has written for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1982, in which he skewers politicos, espouses moderate to liberal causes, and hilariously chronicles the lives of house cats and occasionally the World's Most Perfect Grandchild. Prior to this career, Carroll was an award-winning editor at publications including Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and New West Magazine. 

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