In Replaceable You, Mary Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit as she explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available―sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?

Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.

Mary Roach is the author of eight New York Times best-sellers including STIFF: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers; GULP: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. SPOOK was a New York Times Notable Book. Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times Magazine and the Journal of Clinical Anatomy, among others.

Replaceable You will be released on September 16. Copies are available at the program and at Orinda Books.

Mary Roach

Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation