Next up: Stiff and The Michigan Murders

For 2,000 years, cadavers -- some willingly, some unwittingly -- have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. Stiff, by Mary Roach, is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. (Her latest book is Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, which also looks interesting.)

Southeastern Michigan was rocked in the late 1960s by the terrifying serial murders of young women, whose bodies were dumped in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. In each case, few clues were left at the scene, and six separate police agencies were unable to end the horror. Then, almost by accident, a break came. Edward Keyes wrote the true-crime story, The Michigan Murders, which will be a second February selection.