In the yawning dog days of Summer, last chance for those still on vacation for some lazy summer reading, and a perfect time for last-minute escape to those who might already be back to the school year grind. When you don't have time or energy or the concentration for a novel, nonfiction makes for a good choice.
Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Life of Cadavers, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and the book I want to talk about, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. If there was one word to describe Mary Roach's approach to her subjects I'm going guess... curious?
As you can surmise from the title Roach like to take her curious mind and delve into the more unusual scientific aspects of warfare and its side effects. Told with occasional humor but always tactfully factual, boys will no doubt go into the chapter on genital transplants with a smirk and come out sobered about exactly the sort of "collateral damage" you don't learn in a first-person shooter game. Along the way are chapters on testing shark repellent, how one learns to drive around and over bombs, and the medical benefits of maggots on wounds.
Not for everyone, but for that particular boy out there, this is a goldmine of great nonfiction.
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