Program Description
Event Details
Join us for the Pacific Beach Library's monthly book discussion! Our group meets in a hybrid format, so you can choose whether you'd prefer to join us in-person in the PB Library's Community Room or virtually (please send an email to cwainwright@sandiego.gov for this year's Teams login info).
Description: From the New York Times best-selling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy. 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? In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings.
If you'd like to check out a print copy of the book, they are available 1 month before each discussion at the Pacific Beach Library's Circulation Desk. Please call 858-581-9934 x0 before coming to pick it up so that staff may confirm availability.
Book Discussion Calendar
- January 8, 2026: Select titles to discuss in 2026
- February 12: James by Percival Everett
- March 12: The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
- April 9: The Feather Thief : Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson
- May 14: Feeding Ghosts by Tess Hulls
- June 11: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
- July 9: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson
- August 13: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
- September 10: Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach
- October 8: What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- November 12: One Book, One San Diego selection (to be announced)
- December 10: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
- January 14, 2027: Select titles to discuss in 2027
- February 11, 2027: An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin