'Gory Details' delights with weird and icky

Science writer Erika Engelhaupt’s upcoming book, “Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science,” (March 2) is a delightful travelogue through the morbid, creepy, taboo, icky and weird facts about ourselves and our world.

Engelhaupt’s background is in both science and journalism. She completed two graduate degrees in science and has worked as an editor, writer, blogger and storyteller (on NPR and on stage).

“Gory Details” grew out of her online column by the same name for National Geographic magazine.

Engelhaupt’s style is much like science writer Mary Roach’s, combining fascinating fact, compelling descriptions and humor. She includes self-deprecating anecdotes, such as the time she inadvertently caused a plague of flies in her own home.

The book covers the disturbing, such as death and the microbiology of decay; the taboo, such as female anatomy and necrophilia; the icky, including maggot farms and body fluids; and the weird, including miniature crime scenes and brain differences found in psychopaths and those with misophonia.

Despite her formal education, Engelhaupt’s book is not a dry science tome. With a journalist’s natural curiosity, she investigates topics that many people wonder about but are not part of our common knowledge or addressed in public education.

However, she does know how to find the top experts to answer her (and our) questions. She travels to a body farm to learn about how the human body decomposes; she goes to a maggot farm to find out where the world is turning to feed livestock; and she finds a lab where she can extract and see the mites that live on her (and everyone’s) face.

Engelhaupt also addresses common urban legends and misconceptions. With her, we learn that our loyal dog is much more likely to dine on our dead body than our aloof cat is. Also, doggo’s mouth is not cleaner than our own. In fact, canine mouths contain about 500 species of bacteria, most of which do not live in the human microbiome, so we have no immunity to them. In rare cases, Fluffy’s kiss can result in a coma or death for the object of his devotion.

I am not particularly squeamish about violence and gore in books. My favorite genres include murder mysteries and true crime. However, when I saw that the first part of the book includes chapters with descriptions like “Morbid curiosity and the morgue” and “When microbes turn the tables on us,” I was worried I might have an existential crisis before I was finished reading it.

However, Engelhaupt’s voice is so casual and readable and her tone is so informal, I found that the topics, well not fascinating, but they were interesting and entertaining. No panic attacks or trips to the psych ER.

Above all, Engelhaupt is a storyteller, and “Gory Details” is a fun, informative read. Whether you read it straight through in just a few sittings, or read a few chapters between other books that you’re into, I recommend you don’t read it at mealtime.