A New York Times / National Bestseller

"America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.

Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries -- panic, exhaustion, heat, noise -- and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again.

• We started tracking this book on October 13, 2015.
• This book was $22.73 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 424 times in the past 3,492 days.
• The current price of this book is $2.99 last checked 2 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was $2.99 last reached on May 5, 2025.
• This book has been $2.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $22.73 last reached on October 13, 2015.
• This book has been $22.73 one time since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• HistoryMilitaryMilitary Science
• Science & MathBiological SciencesAnatomy
• Science & MathHistory & Philosophy

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• File Size: 141 KB