My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

I was really surprised by some of the negative reviews. I held off purchasing this book because of them. I never should have listened. This book is AWESOME!!! I pick it up whenever I need to cheer myself. This is one of my favorite books by her. Just because it offers so many different views on life and ways to find humor and gratitude in things (my take). This book will stay where I can access it on my bookshelf and one I will read again. I would consider this book giftable--anyone who likes to smile and learn a little about the world. Enjoy if you pick up a copy.

Laughed myself silly. Mary finds humor in the most mundane situations. A great read.

I first read Roach's columns in Reader's Digest & loved them, so when a friend told me she had written a book about bodies after death,  Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers , I was immediately interested, read it, loved it & have loved every book since.As they originally appeared, each column was the front & back of one page in RD. Nothing has been done to change them, although they're lacking the cartoon that accompanied them in the magazine. The main point being, these are each a very quick read on diverse subjects. If you MUST ALWAYS READ (like me) & have a busy time coming up where you'll be interrupted often, this book would be perfect.Even sitting down reading a dozen of these humorous essays in a row is perfect. Since the subjects are so diverse, my sense of humor doesn't trip out (overload) as it usually does with humorous books. Since Roach is about my age, her witty remarks on marriage, kids, & life in general tend to hit home perfectly.In 2012, I emailed Roach to tell her how much I enjoyed  Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void  & asked if this book might be printed. She told me RD owned all the rights & she doubted it, so I was surprised to find it offered up while I was buying her latest,  Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal  in 2013.I'd guess RD finally realized they had a treasure & put this out at the same time so they could take advantage of her latest book launch without spending any money advertising. Legal, but we have the curious case of an author's work being repackaged & resold without her getting a cent, I suppose. I don't like that, but she signed the contract & their magazine did introduce her name to a huge audience. Besides, it's too good a collection to pass up, so I have to recommend it highly.

I love Mary Roach. Love, love, love! That said, I became acquainted with her narrative showcasing her as a total brainiac, laced with humor as mischievous as it is subtle. She often leaves the reader with the impression they may be in the elite few who caught her quip about cadavers, sex, spirituality, or whatever latest topic has left her indulgently curious, and who doesn't want to share a highbrow chuckle with Mary Roach? The subject matter is always interesting, but I'm just as intrigued by this author I'd love to grab a drink or 5 with. My Planet was definitely written to be more approachable by mainstream America. Leave the dictionary on the nightstand, and enjoy a chapter you can easily read on your Metro commute.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bonk, Stiff, Spook, and Packing for Mars but this one just didn't quite do it for me. It is a collection of short stories that were originally published in Reader's Digest. It was a quick read, with a few funny laugh out loud moments, but most of the time I found myself either slightly smiling and moving along or putting the book down all together. I can see how the stories would be entertaining if they were enjoyed one by one on a weekly basis in a magazine, but I think reading them one after another in succession lost the intended effect. None of them were long enough to really grab me and pull me in and there were very few educational moments. I'll continue to devour her future books (Gulp is next on the list) but I wish I had saved my Kindle money for something more entertaining and thought provoking.

I read everything Mary Roach writes, love the way she tempers raw truths with humor. This one is a collection of her columns from Reader's Digest. LOL material if you are of a "Certain" (boomer) age.

I love Mary Roach's books...Packing for Mars and Stiff are my faves...however, this is not one of those. Rather, it's a collection of her essays for Readers Digest, focused on her home life and husband. It is at times laugh out loud funny, of course, well written and clever, but the essays are so short and the book itself so short that it literally took me less than an hour to read, leaving me bereft and hungering for more...Because it focuses on things ordinary and day to day, it also lacks all the wonderful odd little factoids that she digs up in her more investigative works. It is also quite dated, which is obvious in her several essays about new fangled technological advances like the Palm Pilot.

I love Mary, her stories are so normal but are written in a way that bring out the funniest parts.

The great Mary Roach humour was evident throughout. My two criticisms though would have to be how American centric the book (far more than her other books) and how annoying that every chapter is only two and a half to three pages long.

Not as brilliant as her others but none the less a joy to read :)

Ich bin ein großer Fan von den Science-Büchern von Mary Roach. Ich hatte gehofft, dass diese Sammlung ihrer Kolumnenbeiträge ebenfalls Wissenschaftlicher Natur sein würde - dem ist nicht so. Es sind witzige Beobachtungen ihrer Ehe und ihres Lebens.Nun ist es so, dass ich zwar sehr gerne witzige Romane lese (z.B. Pratchett, Fforde...) aber eher weniger reine Comedy-Bücher. Entsprechend grummelig war ich anfangs und wollte, naja, höchstens 3 Sterne vergeben... Es sind doch jetzt vier geworden, denn das Buch ist wirklich witzig und hat mich so durchaus überzeugt. Es muss einem aber klar sein, dass es sich hier um Kolumnenbeiträge handelt - jeder Beitrag umfasst 3 Seiten, dann kommt der nächste. Es gibt auch einige Wiederholungen (die fallen in der Zeitung nicht auf, aber in einem Buch schon).

This is a great collection of short essays for those hungry for more Mary Roach stories in between devouring her full-length books. You'll learn more about the people in her life, especially her put-upon husband Ed, and get to more about Mary too. I read it while waiting for her new book Gulp to arrive, which was also a wonderful treat. She's my favorite non-fiction writer, all of her books are worthwhile.

Mary Roach is an excellent writer. This, however, is a collection of her newspaper articles that have been previously printed and as such not a cohesive whole. Good moments of humour and of course, well written.