Emperor of Maladies

A Biography of Cancer...may not sound like a book that you would want to read. But in the tradition of great medical history books like "Microbe Hunters," this review is both illuminating and inspiring. When I started the book I thought I had little knowledge of the subject. I suppose this is just another version of denial, because from the early days of chemotherapy to the advent of Gleevec ten years ago, nearly every chapter in the book brought back memories of cancer research, cancer promise and cancer failure over the past 4 decades. Reading the book was not so much a revelation as a consolidation.

The author is a young oncologist practising and teaching in New York City. He undertook the writing of this book after finishing his residency. Understanding the often disconnected worlds of research and clinical practice is central to putting the history of cancer in perspective. Mukherjee tells his story through patient histories, breakthrough journal articles and Nobel acceptance speeches. At all times his explanations are put forth in plain English with a minimum of jargon. Andy.