Rating: 
Summary: Can't put it down!!!
Review: A great book about a weird topic. HP makes some very telling insights about mummies as dead people yet also as natural objects. She reports some very affecting anecdotes about both the mummies and the people who study them, and at the same time tells us a tremendous amount about the science of mummy study. A treat.
Rating:
Summary: good fun
Review: I know, I know, I can hear you now : why in the name of God would I want to read 300 pages about mummies ? Well, let me just briefly try to convince you that you do want to. First of all, Heather Pringle is a terrific writer. This is popular science writing as it should be done, witty, interesting and accessible. Second, the mummies themselves are fascinating. Though we tend to think of just the Egyptians and old horror movies (which, amazingly enough, she was not a fan of as a youth), a wide range of cultures--including our own, as Pringle shows in the very amusing final chapter--have been obsessed by the idea of preserving the body even after death. The mummies offer her the opportunity to look into each of these cultures and into a variety of topics, including disease, murder, drugs and other equally juicy matters. Finally, the scientists and researchers who study the mummies are a colorful and interesting group in their own right and Pringle, though sympathetic to them, has a good sense of what makes them entertaining. Just trust me on this one; read the book; it's great fun.GRADE : A-
Rating:
Summary: Impressive...
Review: I picked up this book recently at the library. And then I couldn't put it down. Author Heather Pringle manages to keep the pace lively throughout this book; not that the subject matters hurts either. I didn't know much about mummies going into this book, except how the ancient Egyptians prepared theirs. "The Mummy Congress" soon put an end to my ignorance, and in a very amusing, captivating way. In the book, we are introduced to the mummy experts and their beloved mummies in detail. Pringle pulls no punches in her descriptions of the people or the ethcial dilemmas they sometimes face. She also gives the reader a multitude of lessons in mummies. Did you know that some of the paintings you may see in museums were painted with a pigment called Mummy -- made out of ground mummies? Did you know that there are many mummies in South America which tell us how the culture faced grief? Did you know that caucasians once lived in China? Read this book, and you'll learn many such facts. The best thing is that Pringle doesn't write for the expert; she's writing for those of us with an interest, but no experience. And she manages to do it in an entertaining way. I couldn't find any dull parts in this book. So, read it and be amazed at the ancient worlds and people you'll get to know. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
Rating:
Summary: Impressive...
Review: I picked up this book recently at the library. And then I couldn't put it down. Author Heather Pringle manages to keep the pace lively throughout this book; not that the subject matters hurts either. I didn't know much about mummies going into this book, except how the ancient Egyptians prepared theirs. "The Mummy Congress" soon put an end to my ignorance, and in a very amusing, captivating way. In the book, we are introduced to the mummy experts and their beloved mummies in detail. Pringle pulls no punches in her descriptions of the people or the ethcial dilemmas they sometimes face. She also gives the reader a multitude of lessons in mummies. Did you know that some of the paintings you may see in museums were painted with a pigment called Mummy -- made out of ground mummies? Did you know that there are many mummies in South America which tell us how the culture faced grief? Did you know that caucasians once lived in China? Read this book, and you'll learn many such facts. The best thing is that Pringle doesn't write for the expert; she's writing for those of us with an interest, but no experience. And she manages to do it in an entertaining way. I couldn't find any dull parts in this book. So, read it and be amazed at the ancient worlds and people you'll get to know. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
Rating:
Summary: Mummy Acquaintences
Review: I purchased this book because I am acquainted with some of the mummies mentioned, and their biographer, although I am not an expert in the field. Ms. Pringle's book helped me to enhance my understanding of the world-wide and historical context of mummies. The manner in which she discussed the mummy researcher as well as his/her subjects made this book an interesting and lively read. It was scientific detail and human interest all in one story, tied with the thread of the Mummy Congress, a little-known and fascinating gathering. Good job, Ms. Pringle!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent writing, but not quite a spiritual experience.
Review: Pringle displays ample skill as a non-fiction writer: careful word choice, an eye for metaphor and a keen facility for description. She straddles the gap between what she calls " the everlasting dead" and the living (if marginally so, in some cases) who love them, and gives shape to our obsession with styxian realms. The reader experiences vivid cross-sections of what must be an enormous world, the world of mummies: from Lenin's waxy vestiges in his mausoleum to ancient Danes exhumed by nature from their boggy preservation to the brittle clay remains of Peruvian children. Pringle provides wonderful texture to a fascinating and bizarre (nether)world. One wonders why a comprehensive treatment of the subject for lay people has heretofore not been attempted. Yet, for all the excellent writing and compelling subject matter, Pringle's work lacks falls just short of the last yard: a unifying spiritual theme, a thread of allegory to tie it all together and leave a more permanent impression. One gets the sense that she is curious about mummies and their students, but not consumed by them, not possessed by them. She does not love them, and so cannot make them and her work a transcendent experience, as it so rightly should be. And she comes so close. Still, this book is a very welcome addition to my scientific non-fiction shelf, and one I will return to again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Mummy Congresses are more fun thanks to Heather!
Review: The clever and winsome Heather Pringle has succeded in writing a simply wonderful account of the quaint practice of preserving people after their death. Some mummies are probably preserved more by accident rather than intention while others are the subjects of elaborate embalming (cf Nature 413:837-841, 2001). She has included all manner of ancient remains and although her knowledge of paleo-PCR and RNA signatures from reverse transcription is somewhat ephemeral she has done both her footwork and her homework very well. One bizarre practice, that of preserving "wet" modern day mummies in liquid nitrogen in the uninformed belief that they can somehow be resurrected at sometime in the future demonstrates the continued gullibility of the ignorant.
Another emerging technology not mentioned is in preserving bone marrow stem cells or other somatic cells in the frozen state for eventual cloning by nuclear transfer. Cells from at least one former president rest in a freezer somewhere (but without the intention of eventual cloning).
Be that as it may, Pringle's book is a wellspring of information on the philosophy and practice of preserving the human body.
Rating:
Summary: amusing, informative & weird!
Review: The Mummy Congress is as dramatic as it sounds. The cover photo is arresting & you have got to wonder what these "leading mummy experts" are like? What are their passions? How much intrigue can you squeeze from a perfectly preserved 2000 year old body? Ah, let Heather Pringle tell you! This is one weird read! Well written, amusing & informative about a world within a world filled with intrigue, humor & thoughts about the preservation of this bag of bones in which we walk our lives & the records, myths & stories of why we do it. Funnily enough, after traipsing all around the world on the heels of the mummy archaeologists, soaking up their stories & their passions, Heather Pringle learned that when they were asked if they would choose to be mummified, most said no, with quaint sincerity, because they wouldn't want to be stared at in museums or examined by curious scientists. Fascinating! Changed my mind about eternity, anorexia, grief & where the soul might really dwell!
Rating:
Summary: Gruesomely fascinating
Review: The Mummy is a history of the practice of mummification. We tend to think of this as a purely Egyptian phenomenon, but that isn't the case at all. Other civilisations have sought to cheat death in the same way. Even in the modern era we find the preserved bodies of Lenin and Mao and other lesser political corpses still leering over the people they once ruled. The centuries have also presented us with an enormous numbers of cases of bodies being preserved by purely natural means - the most obvious example being the frozen corpse of a neolithic hunter found recently in the Alps and also the many preserved bodies dug up from peat bogs and the like. Heather Pringle examines these and many other cases with enormous humour and gusto and, it must be admitted, just a little bit of grue. I found it absolutely riveting.
Rating:
Summary: Good introduction to the topic
Review: The writer brings a journalistic approach to the topic of mummies and the sub-title of the book clearly defines the multiple angles she chose to follow. She covers a great deal of territory, both geographically (all the continents except Antarctica) historically, psychologically and morally. In a sense this is almost an "Encyclopedia of the Mummy" because it covers so many aspects of mummy hunting, dissecting and preserving. Most mummy hunters seem obsessed by their quest. They may be after mummies for scientific, historic, theatric or religious reasons, but hunt them they must. This raises moral issues; after all these were once human beings that we are putting on display, slicing for DNA or just carting off to some museums storage room. Can we justify it if we, say, understand some disease better after the research? Or is it just voyeurism for us all to know what the Iceman ate for his last meal? The writer introduces us to individual mummy hunters, strong characters all, and the unusual places they work. Her writing is clear and vivid, if a trifle long. She is at her best describing the moral and psychological issues surrounding our fascination with mummies and the way they relate to our own mortality anf hopes for immmortality.
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