Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Subject With Many Facets

The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee

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Damn, sometimes you come across an author who’s skills you envy so much it hurts. Siddhartha Mukherjee is absolutely one of these authors. I wish I could communicate the intracies of biology in the way Mukherjee does, while keeping it both interesting and easy to digest. I sometimes struggle to do this in person, but in writing? It’s a daunting task.  Both of Mukherjee’s previous books— The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer; and The Gene: An Intimate History—are both excellent books that […]

CBR11Bingo: SCIENCE!

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

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Siddhartha Mukherjee is a physician, biologist, and oncologist, and this is a book all about genes — a massive and complicated area of science (science!) that he breaks down wonderfully for his readers. The audio book was 20 hours long. It took me an entire road trip to get through. I loved it. The subtitle of The Gene is An Intimate History, and intimate is right. This book is so incredibly detailed — he examines every single aspect of genes: how they affect our personalities, […]

Fuck Cancer: The Biography of Our Nemesis

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So obviously we all hate cancer, which is as controversial an opinion as saying puppies are cute, but considering that this post is going up on a site honoring one of our own lost to the disease, this review feels a bit like critiquing a biography of Lex Luthor for the Daily Planet. Thait said, let me adjust my robes and address the choir. The subtitle of the book is “a biography of cancer,” and it aims to follow the disease and its treatments from […]

Both an intimate history and a large-scale one

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For years, people have recommended Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book about cancer, The Emperor of all Maladies, to me. It’s sooooo good, they would say, not like you think a book about cancer would be. I don’t read a ton of nonfiction and a book about the history of cancer has always sounded incredibly grim, despite what anyone says, so I’ve always politely ignored their suggestions. After reading The Gene however, I’m actually considering picking it up. Mukherjee is an incredibly talented writer. The Gene delves into […]

Dense but interesting

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This is not a book to read in an evening or two. For one thing, it’ll depress the hell out of you. It’s also very dense, very technical and chock full of information. But don’t let that dissuade you, if you’re interested in this sort of thing — taking it a chunk at a time made it digestible, and very, very interesting to read. “Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves.” Siddhartha Mukherjee tells two […]

Know Your Enemy

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Like most people, I find pretty much everything about cancer terrifying. It doesn’t help that I’ve chosen a profession [Firefighter] that has all kinds of increased rates of cancer. Most of us at work don’t even like to talk about it because it reminds us that the unknown and uncontrollable might hit us at anytime. So you might wonder why I chose to read The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010) by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Every once in a while I like to delve […]



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