This book won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2010. It is written by a physician who interweaves his clinical experiences as a medical oncologist with the history of cancer, including how humans came to understand that it wasn’t one disease but several and how treatments were developed as scientific understanding of human bodies progressed. For example, realizing that bodies were made up of cells and that cancers were also cells rather than viruses was a big step forward in the 1840’s.
The work is constructed as within stories within stories, including cases of patients, biographies of scientists and doctors, and Mukherjee’s own learning to become an oncologist through the inevitable trial and error of medical education. Written (almost) as engagingly as any novel, it’s still a big commitment for a student or layperson and not easy to assign in small parts. It might be most useful as a background reading to get a sense of medical history generally and a somewhat soothing answer when it seems like every third person you know is dealing with cancer (partly because we’re all living so long, partly because – all that other stuff).
