Other Worlds

Back in January, I looked about this room of mine ~ took a really good look ~ and saw the neglect.

I gawked at the massive amounts of books piling up ~ dangerously close to buckling the shelves.  I perused through the intriguing titles; breathed in their intoxicating smell of paper and mystery;  I ran my hands down their spines, reminiscing the day I brought each one home.
Then, came the guilt.
Next, the anger.
I had let these treasures go unread for too long.  It was in that moment, I made a promise to them and to myself.  I would read more.  I would read more often.  I would read every day, uncovering their secrets and charms.  And I would not rest until each one told me their story.  

I am proud to report that I am staying true to my resolution.

Currently, I'm reading Stiff by Mary Roach. (She has a very cool website by the way)
If you haven't heard of it, it's a compelling book about "the curious lives of human cadavers" and it's very informative.  It's also quite disturbing and could be why I like it.
If you're a bit on the reserved side, this may not be the read for you, as it is graphic as all hell.

I am only half way through, but I am captivated by it and wanted to share one of it's more grisly passages, which was taken from a Memoir in 1822.
It goes:

"Robert...took me for the first time to the dissecting room.
...At the sight of that terrible charnel-house ~ fragments of limbs, the grinning heads and gaping skulls, the bloody quagmire underfoot and the atrocious smell it gave off, the swarms of sparrows wrangling over scraps of lung, the rats in their corner gnawing the bleeding vertebrae ~ such a feeling of revulsion possessed me that I leapt through the window of the dissecting room and fled for home as though Death and all his hideous train were at my heels."

Can you picture it?
Can you smell it?
Does it get any darker than this?

Well done, M. Roach, well done.


(And a shout out to Travis who introduced this book to me.  Thanks :)