Summer arrived soon after so the two of us played a horrendous game of pool while Mike set up. Mike's is a great spot for book club as the condo complex has it's own rec room and library! Soon after Lisa arrived, we started. The group seemed a bit thin, but we couldn't hold out any longer. As I was the only person to read the whole book, we started from the back and went over each chapter from last to first. The book covered a whole range of things from cadavers used for crash tests, determining causes of plane crashes, used by cosmetic surgery students, ammunition testing, the history or organ donation and the fascinating and sordid past of body snatching for early anatomists.
I continued filling the others in on what they had missed. Not quite my favourite, but perhaps the most curious being use of cadavers being for medicinal purposes and specifically the medicinal properties believed to be held in the honeyfied remains of old men. In some civilization which has escaped me, in a time not as long ago as you'd think, (though that also escapes me) aging men would go in strict honey diets. They would piss and shit honey until finally they died from malnutrition. Obviously. The honey body was then placed in a tomb, covered in more honey and sealed for a hundred years. After this time had elapsed, the men had turned into some kind of dried honey treat that was believed to have some super medicinal properties. How they arrived at all that is something I would very much like to know, but not explained in the book. In a desperate attempt to bring food themed with the book, I was hoping to bring some kind of dried honey treat, but I ended up at the Gelson's bakery on my way over and demanded "Something that has lots of honey in it." It didn't quite capture the images conjured in the book, but I tried.
I wonder how these guys feel about their poor showing in this book?
Eventually Drew showed up, and finally Lorisa, Patrick and Russell who thought it still started at 8pm. While I had been proud to be the only one who finished the book, my glory was diminished with Lorisa's arrival as she had done the same. I cling to what little glory I can get. Summer had read the most after Lorisa and I, so she took over the recap until she overlapped with Lisa. More proof that the blog needs to be written right away, because I can't remember anything new that came out from the discussions aside from the recaps, but there was stuff, I swear!There was a lot of talk about what people wanted done with their bodied after they died. I think Russell was adamant that his organs were his and he wasn't giving them to no-one. I was keen on the fertilizer idea where a Swedish crackpot (I shouldn't say that, she seemed lovely) has big ideas to freeze bodies with liquid nitrogen, then shatter them into tiny pieces and use them as compost. Then you would actually feed a tree, rather than being a worthless pile of ash. Apparently just dumping a body as is to decompose is more of a hindrance than a help.
As I said, aside from going over what we read, I forget the little dalliances of opinions and stories that make book club such an utter JOY. If I can't be bothered writing the blog right away, I shall at least take notes next time. Apologies.
Once we were done and realising that the hours of condo conveniences being at our disposal were coming to a close, (the reason for the earlier time revealed!) we hot footed to the hot tub to conclude. In the hot tub it was revealed to be Patrick's birthday, a real champ for still coming to book club on this day. I took this opportunity to boast about the blog which I subsequently neglected.
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*Not actual tub, nor actual book club member.
