For my nonfiction book, I chose The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
From the Publisher:
The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.
From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.
Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.
About the Author:
Aside from being an author, Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. Currently he is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. In 2011, he won a Pullitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for The Emperor of All Maladies.
Why this book?
To be honest, I hate nonfiction. Like, really hate it. As in, I make a point to avoid it all costs when it comes to what I read in my free time. For whatever reason, nonfiction and I don't mix well. Usually when I read a nonfiction book, I end up feeling like my life force is being slowly sucked out of body. In other words, they usually bore me to death. So with this project, I wanted to pick a book I, you know, would actually enjoy reading. Not only did the PBS special with the same name get raving reviews from my science nerd grandfather, my dad recommended it as well. What really drew me to it, though, is the fact that it supposedly reads more like a story than anything else what with its unique weaving of science and personal experience.
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