What will happen to you when you die? It's not a question asked often in polite company, but if you were asked, what would you say? Many of us would consider our choices to be quite simple, limited to cremation or burial. But as Mary Roach reveals in this hugely entertaining, light-hearted and informative book the actual possibilities are almost endless.

You could be freeze-dried, minced and returned to the soil, to help a tree grow. Or put your cadaver to good use and help to further the body of knowledge in the field of criminal forensics, by slowly decomposing in woodland at the University of Tennessee. Or drive (and crash) the latest model of your favourite car. Or be the close companion of an anatomy student throughout their education, as they learn what made you tick before your spring finally unwound.

As well as the practical, physical aspects of our ultimate destination the book also discusses weighty issues such as what constitutes death. "Beating heart cadavers" are an essential ingredient for successful organ transplantation, but create all sorts of moral and ethical questions that need to be answered. The seat-of-the-soul debate is particularly interesting - for example did you know that until the 1970s there was no legal clarity on the issue of brain death?

What forced the issue was a bizarre murder trial in Oakland, California. The killer, Andrew Lyons, shot a man in the head and left him brain-dead. When Lyons's attourneys found out that the victim's family had donated his heart for transplantation, they tried to use this in Lyons's defence: If the heart was still beating at the time of the surgery, they maintained, then how could it be that Lyons had killed him the day before? They tried to convince the jury that Andrew Lyons hadn't murdered the man, the organ recovery surgeon had.

The book is chock-full of this sort of fascinating background detail. It's rarely gruesome or ghoulish, almost always sensitive, but with the occasional lapse into what some readers (not this one, I should add) may consider bad taste. It's very much about living with death too, exploring the coping strategies and emotional responses of the people who work with the dead every day.

It's a destination we're all travelling towards, some faster than others, yet death is a subject many of us shy away from. Whether you want to be fully appraised of your choices post-demise, understand a little more what death is all about, or just reassure yourself that it's not going to be that bad, this is a great read. Me? I'm with Susanne Wiigh-Masak - return me to the soil. That cherry tree in the orchard could use a bit of a boost.