The National Series is welcoming Mary Roach back to Traverse City for her latest book–Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy. Replaceable You offers a rollicking exploration of cutting-edge regenerative medicine. With characteristic humor and lucid detail, Roach orients readers in a field that brims with surreal medical solutions and with potential to meet some of the most daunting challenges posed by the unpredictable experience of inhabiting a human body.
We visit the Massachusetts General Hospital, where doctors deploy innovative methods for skin grafting, sometimes using cadavers or Icelandic cod. We hear from researchers at the Extracorporeal Life Support Laboratory, where they develop technologies including artificial wombs and wearable kidneys. From cataract surgeries, to gender-affirming procedures, to game-changing ventilators, Roach charts the impressive expansion of medical possibility.
For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available – sculpting noses from brass, crafting eye parts from jet canopies, and breasts from petroleum by-products. In Replaceable You, Roach celebrates how far we’ve come and explores the questions that doctors and patients still face today. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than an existing limb? Is there a sensitive way to harvest tissue and bones from the deceased? Which animals might be the best organ donors? Through interviews with patients, physicians, pathologists, engineers, and scientists, Roach immerses readers in the wondrous quest to build a new you.
“We are all replaceable to some degree or another . . . with the exception of Mary Roach. There is no one and nothing like her—singular, bizarre, dedicated, passionate, fascinating. Her writing traffics at the unusual intersection of science, storytelling, and humor. That is a very tricky intersection to navigate, and no one does it as masterfully or consistently as she. I devour everything she writes.” – Jason Alexander, actor/director
Mary Roach is the author of the New York Times bestsellers STIFF, SPOOK, BONK, GULP, GRUNT, and PACKING FOR MARS. Her new book FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law, debuts in September 2021. Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine, among others, and her TED talk made the TED 20 Most Watched list. She has been a guest editor for Best American Science and Nature Writing, a finalist for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize, and a winner of the American Engineering Societies’ journalism award, in a category for which, let’s be honest, she was the sole entrant.
The event begins at 7 p.m. and includes a Q&A and author signing. Tickets do not include a book. If you’d like to purchase a book, please do so above. Please note: signed books are only available at the live event.
Virtual Option
Even if you can’t make it to the City Opera House, you can still enjoy National Writers Series events from the comfort of your own home on event night or later on-demand when it’s more convenient. Learn more about virtual tickets on the “virtual tickets” button above.
Doug Stanton is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of In Harm’s Way and 12 Strong, made into a major motion picture by Jerry Bruckheimer, and The Odyssey of Echo Company. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Time, The Washington Post, Men’s Journal, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Esquire, and Outside.
He was awarded the 2021 Steven Ambrose Oral History award. He attended Interlochen Arts Academy, Hampshire College, and received an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. He created the National Writers Series in 2009 with his wife, Anne, and attorney Grant Parsons. He and Anne have three children and live in Traverse City.
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