All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes

Name: All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
SKU: 76887
Availability: InStock

4.5 | 4,639 ratings

Price: 21.88

Last update: 06-18-2024

Top reviews from the United States

Andantelle

One-of-a-Kind Book

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2023

This is truly a one-of-a-kind book. The subject matter—cadavers—would never be on my reading list. But I purchased this book based on a positive review.
The author Susan Black is an expert in the field and writes passionately on this delicate subject. She and her colleagues treat the deceased with dignity while studying the magnificent human anatomy.
Her many personal stories give levity to the text and many I-didn’t-know-that moments. I was most impressed when she sent a letter to the Prime Minister advocating for the identification of deceased remains in a conflict. Bravo on a job and book well done!

4doxiemom

Fascinating forensics

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2024

I love how she opens the book with her background and view of death. I am just a little ways in, but find it engaging and fascinating.

Bernard Lavallee

quite a book

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2024

Very interesting and at times very gruesome. The author seems to dwell on death as though it’s simply another phase of life. Isn’t death the end of life! You won’t forget this book if you read it through and you may disagree with her but it’s hard to ignore her honesty.

Salima

I could not put down this book! It's a page turner for sure.

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2021

Sue Black is an amazingly gifted writer! I could not put this book down. It's written professionally, scientifically, with immense respect both for the wonders of life, and for the intricacies and changes that occur to our bodies after death. Sue Black advocates for how important it is to help medical students by pre-planning (if wished) one's own body as a donation to science, and she describes in introspective detail the gratitude felt by anatomy students who examine a deceased corpse, as they learn about the incredible intricacies of the human body. Sue Black vividly and humbly recalls her own experience as a medical student when she first learned how to dissect a donor cadaver, and learned about the human body, and the deep relationship of awe, humility, respect she developed with the cadaver she was assigned to.

This whole book, even though it deals all the time with bodies and body parts (rotting, to a certain extent, most of the time), is never gross. The author is methodically descriptive, never offensive, and -- at least for me as her reader -- she really helped me think about my own mortality in realistic terms, as just one more fact of life, the terminal fact of life, in fact, and about how to cherish every living day on earth, and why. As she writes, we all eventually meet death, why not meet "her" (she engenders death as a female, several time in the book) prepared and serene for this extraordinary encounter which will happen only once for each one of us.

Sue Black has a dry sense of humor permeating the pages. My thinking is that the best reader for this book is someone already relatively at peace with the concept of death, someone curious to know what happens biochemically to the human body once oxygen no longer flows to the cells, and someone interested in probing how each of us leaves a legacy when we die: a corporal one, and one of memories generated by all the various adventures we create when we meet other fellow human beings who cross our path on earth.

I think a good subtitle for this book would be something along he lines of "How to Read a Dead Body Like a History Book about the Life of That Specific Person."

While Sue Black stays in the background in most pages (she is professionally a forensic anthropologist -- I did not even know that such a thing existed before I read her book -- and most of what she writes is, in fact, about her job and its challenges), the last chapter is finally devoted to herself: a portrait of what she has learned about life and about death, having been for decades in her profession.

The author comes across as a woman you would want to meet and take a peaceful walk with one quiet afternoon, just chatting about life and death. This has become easily one of my favorite books. I can't wait for Sue Black's next book to be published.

J. Shields

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2024

I read this book for the science, but got so much more out of it. Sue Black put so much humanity in this work. Well worth the read. I would suggest it to anyone but doubly so for people thinking of going into fields like medicine and forensics.

joyce

Not really for me.

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2024

Too much of the same thing, although it is well written.

Michael M

Top notch author.

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2024

This book is now a part of my Forensic Library.

Amazon Customer Sharon

fascinating

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2022

The author covered so many different aspects of death and the ability of the dead to teach forensic scientists, I was in awe. I was struck by my ignorance of the different processes the human body goes through after death and the ability of forensics to find answers for the living. I was especially moved by the respect and reverence given to those who have dedicated their bodies to science. A fascinating read.

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