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Also recommended by: Jane Lynch

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voicenot because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mothers death, but because he was the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boysbest friendsare playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boys mother. The boy who hits the ball doesnt believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is Gods instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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"One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting."Entertainment Weekly Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadaverssome willingly, some unwittinglyhave been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.