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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of. The Emperor of All Maladies eBook: Siddhartha Mukherjee: Amazon. Kindle Exam Central Kindle eTextbooks Best Sellers Indian language eBooks Free Kindle Reading Apps Content and devices Kindle Support. This is literature, not popular science. “The Emperor of Maladies” empowers us, makes it clear that we really do know this enemy, and so.
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Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 1439107955 (ISBN13: 9781439107959)
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-wi...more
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-wi...more
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Published November 16th 2010 by Scribner
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RosalieI've read other long, rich histories (science, medicine, general history, etc), but have not lost my way in the middle so much as I did with this…moreI've read other long, rich histories (science, medicine, general history, etc), but have not lost my way in the middle so much as I did with this book. As you say, it is incredibly well-researched, but it does seem to suffer from a 'too slow in the middle' syndrome. I haven't reviewed the book, but only because I've put it aside unfinished. Your question helped me to understand why. It's more about the storytelling pace, than the amount of information. Thanks.(less)
JahnaviPulitzer prize winning - yes, moving account - in parts, yes, but it is also excruciatingly detailed in its recounting of events.
The focus is not on…morePulitzer prize winning - yes, moving account - in parts, yes, but it is also excruciatingly detailed in its recounting of events.
The focus is not on cancer patients, neither is it on oncologists - rather its the telling of our journey wading through cancer - a biography, like the tagline reads, with due to attention to all those involved.
It is easy to understand, i'd say - but not an 'easy read' - it'll definitely take multiple sittings, unless you're the kind to devour scientific facts on the go.
Should you pick up to read the book, I'll say you'll have plenty of revelations - it's well-written from literature's stand-point as well, and a book I quite like!(less)
Microhistory: Social Histories of Just One ThingThe focus is not on…morePulitzer prize winning - yes, moving account - in parts, yes, but it is also excruciatingly detailed in its recounting of events.
The focus is not on cancer patients, neither is it on oncologists - rather its the telling of our journey wading through cancer - a biography, like the tagline reads, with due to attention to all those involved.
It is easy to understand, i'd say - but not an 'easy read' - it'll definitely take multiple sittings, unless you're the kind to devour scientific facts on the go.
Should you pick up to read the book, I'll say you'll have plenty of revelations - it's well-written from literature's stand-point as well, and a book I quite like!(less)
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Dec 11, 2010David rated it it was ok
Every year there's always one non-fiction book that the entire literate world raves about and that I hate. In 2009 it was Richard Holmes's 'The Age of Wonder', the following year it was 'The Emperor of All Maladies'.
Universally admired, winner of a Pulitzer prize, this book annoyed me so profoundly when I first read it that I've had to wait almost a year to be able to write anything vaguely coherent about it. The flaws that I found so infuriating a year ago seem less important upon a second read...more
Aug 29, 2011Riku Sayuj rated it it was amazing · review of another editionUniversally admired, winner of a Pulitzer prize, this book annoyed me so profoundly when I first read it that I've had to wait almost a year to be able to write anything vaguely coherent about it. The flaws that I found so infuriating a year ago seem less important upon a second read...more
Shelves: favorites, history, cancer, r-r-rs, science-gen, medicine
Anna Cancerina
What a masterpiece. With beautiful metaphors, poignant case studies, breath-taking science and delectable literary allusions, Siddhartha Mukherjee takes us on a detailed yet panoramic trip spanning centuries. Probably one of the best science books I have ever read.
My favorite parts in the book are the literary allusions that capture the depth and feeling of what is being described so well, such as Cancer Ward, Alice in Wonderland, Invisible Cities, Oedipus Rex and many more.
The mo...more
Jun 10, 2011Petra X rated it it was amazingWhat a masterpiece. With beautiful metaphors, poignant case studies, breath-taking science and delectable literary allusions, Siddhartha Mukherjee takes us on a detailed yet panoramic trip spanning centuries. Probably one of the best science books I have ever read.
My favorite parts in the book are the literary allusions that capture the depth and feeling of what is being described so well, such as Cancer Ward, Alice in Wonderland, Invisible Cities, Oedipus Rex and many more.
The mo...more
Shelves: 10-star-books, medicine-science, reviewed
This book took me over a year to read. I kept it on the kitchen counter and as the left-hand page pile got bigger there was me standing on the right, getting smaller. It was my diet book. A couple of pages and a pound or so every week. What I was doing was either boiling the kettle or making my own concoction of a fat and cholesterol-busting mousse that involved just holding an immersion whisk for a couple of minutes. I have such a low threshold for boredom I had to do something, so I read Emper...more
Mar 15, 2011Julia Hayes rated it it was amazing
This is personal. Cancer entered my life uninvited trying to consume the body of my daughter, Aria. It was January 2008 when I heard the words, “We think she has leukemia.” She was four years old.
In the prologue of “The Emperor of All Maladies—A Biography of Cancer” by Siddartha Mukherjee, he wrote, “…the arrival of a patient with acute leukemia still sends a shiver down the hospital’s spine—all the way from the cancer wards on its upper floors to the clinical laboratories buried deep in the bas...more
Nov 14, 2010Cait Poytress rated it really liked it · review of another editionIn the prologue of “The Emperor of All Maladies—A Biography of Cancer” by Siddartha Mukherjee, he wrote, “…the arrival of a patient with acute leukemia still sends a shiver down the hospital’s spine—all the way from the cancer wards on its upper floors to the clinical laboratories buried deep in the bas...more
Shelves: read-in-2011, non-fiction, ucked-fay-up-way, owned, pulitzer, science, titles-i-love
Dec 06, 2010Vicki rated it it was amazing
As someone with a budding interest in diseases- whether chronic, acute, or intermittent- I immediately purchased this book for my library as soon as it was published. I anticipated a similarity to a favorite book of 2010, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, but this book dives much deeper into the history of cancer, while interweaving personal accounts of patients the author treated. This biography is different from anything I have read this year; poignant, lyrical, accessible- and most of all...more
Oct 09, 2014Warwick rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I've been wanting to read this since it first appeared, but I was just too nervous. Call it superstition. This is far scarier than any of your Barkers, your Kings or your Koontzes: there are no such things as zombies or bogeymen, but cancer is out there. Waiting for us.
In The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell talks a lot about the irony of the First World War. Cancer, in the same way, is a deeply ironic disease. As Peyton Rous said, ‘Nature sometimes seems possessed of a sardonic humor.’...more
Shelves: nonfiction, science, favorites, mortality
Deep breath. This book is elegant, extraordinarily insightful, and most of all important. Despite the big words and the complicated science, Mukherjee had me riveted from start to finish. I thought I had a knowledge of cancer before this book, but now I understand it, in all of its feverish complexity and horrifying beauty. In the history of cancer research, there have been bright flashes of brilliance combined with truths that are stupidly rediscovered centuries too late (such as the carcinogen...more
Dec 28, 2018Tony rated it it was amazing
I knew before I had finished The Gene: An Intimate History that I would have to read this earlier work by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Yet I waited over two years, a reading eternity for those who know me. See, I tend to the obsessional in my reading, and I do not need hypnosis to be suggestible. Oh, you can't sway me with your opinions -- I'm too contrarian for that. But if I was drinking Pinot Noir and I offered you a glass of it and you said, no, that Pinot Noir made your mouth too dry, then my mou...more
Jun 19, 2011Jessica rated it really liked itRecommended to Jessica by: my brilliant scientist friend emily, who i hope cures cancer before i get it
I am a big blubbery crybaby when I'm reading a book, but I'm gonna have to get over that if I'm going to get through The Emperor of All Maladies. I almost bailed at page five because it was obvious that reading this would involve an intolerable amount of weeping on public transit, but then I realized that what I must do is master myself.
I'm too old to be crying all the time! It's ridiculous! I'm going to read this book and I'm going to put a wrench to the waterworks! I'm gonna save my tears for...more
Nov 03, 2010Nick Black rated it really liked itI'm too old to be crying all the time! It's ridiculous! I'm going to read this book and I'm going to put a wrench to the waterworks! I'm gonna save my tears for...more
Recommended to Nick by: Steven Shapin (The New Yorker)
Shelves: snap-crackle-pop-science, likely-reread, important
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics...
Hyperliterate, scientifically savvy, a hot-boiled detective novel spinning along axes of surgery, chemical and radiative therapy, molecular biology, bioinformatics, immunology, epidemiology and supercomputing -- there's a little bit here for every NT (and if you aren't NT*, then to hell with ya!). Suffers noticeably from a lack of editorial quality control -- several passages are repeated almost word-for-word (why does this happen so often in high-grade po...more
Aug 01, 2016Kat rated it it was amazing · review of another editionHyperliterate, scientifically savvy, a hot-boiled detective novel spinning along axes of surgery, chemical and radiative therapy, molecular biology, bioinformatics, immunology, epidemiology and supercomputing -- there's a little bit here for every NT (and if you aren't NT*, then to hell with ya!). Suffers noticeably from a lack of editorial quality control -- several passages are repeated almost word-for-word (why does this happen so often in high-grade po...more
Shelves: science-and-popular-science, harsh-reality, history-and-such, binnengehaald, health-and-medicine, favorites
It currently dominates the news in The Netherlands: the suspicious deaths of several people with cancer, who were treated with the drug 3-Bromopyruvate (3BP) in an alternative cancer centre in Germany. It’s likely that those that were treated at this clinic had no other treatment options available in conventional medicine, and so turned to alternative medicine as a last resort. Therefore, a high death rate seems unavoidable either way. Yet, authorities have reason to believe that patients at thi...more
Apr 16, 2018Emer rated it really liked it · review of another edition Shelves: read2018, 4stars, reviewed, library-loan, non-fiction
Fascinating and deep insight into the history of cancer research dating all the way back to an Egyptian text from 2500BC describing a 'bulging tumour in the breast for which there was no treatment'.
A fairly comprehensive explanation of cancer biology that I believe can still be understood by the lay person. However, diagrams involving the targeting of proto-/oncogenes and diagrams explaining the signalling cascade of some kinases could perhaps have helped those without a science background to un...more
A fairly comprehensive explanation of cancer biology that I believe can still be understood by the lay person. However, diagrams involving the targeting of proto-/oncogenes and diagrams explaining the signalling cascade of some kinases could perhaps have helped those without a science background to un...more
Nov 27, 2015Stephanie *Extremely Stable Genius* rated it really liked it
Done!! Phew!!
Everything you've ever wanted to know, and didn't want to know about cancer. While this is not light reading, it's interesting reading.
Jan 16, 2012Carol rated it it was amazingEverything you've ever wanted to know, and didn't want to know about cancer. While this is not light reading, it's interesting reading.
Shelves: book-group-reads, non-fiction
I’m debating whether I should forgo the star system on my reviews. My stars make more sense when you align them with genre or category than title perhaps.
Take a book like The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. How do the 5 stars I’m going to rate this book stand along side a butcher thriller that I’ve rated this highly too?
This was a book group book and I worried that some would find the topic overally depressing to read or that others, cancer survivors themselve...more
Take a book like The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. How do the 5 stars I’m going to rate this book stand along side a butcher thriller that I’ve rated this highly too?
This was a book group book and I worried that some would find the topic overally depressing to read or that others, cancer survivors themselve...more
Dec 04, 2016Rohit Enghakat rated it it was amazing
'Cancer changes your life' a patient wrote after her mastectomy. 'It alters your habits...Everything becomes magnified.'
This statement is so terrifying that it always rings in your subconscious mind while reading this book. The book is beautifully written and an epic tome on cancer. Full marks to Siddhartha Mukherjee for his detailed analysis and extensive research on the disease. Each chapter starts with quotes by people associated with the disease and about half-way down the book, you realise...more
Mar 06, 2018Sonja Arlow rated it really liked it · review of another editionThis statement is so terrifying that it always rings in your subconscious mind while reading this book. The book is beautifully written and an epic tome on cancer. Full marks to Siddhartha Mukherjee for his detailed analysis and extensive research on the disease. Each chapter starts with quotes by people associated with the disease and about half-way down the book, you realise...more
Shelves: non-fiction, medicine, 2018-read, recommended
For me the word CANCER has always felt like that weird little creature in the movie Beetlejuice. If you say its name too often it may just manifest in front if you. Especially because both my parents are cancer survivors and my extended family is also riddled with cancer cases.
And I know I am not alone in my fear of this disease. The stigma around cancer is mentioned frequently in this book.
But knowledge is power, and I was determined to tackle this Beetlejuice head-on. Yet it seems the more we...more
And I know I am not alone in my fear of this disease. The stigma around cancer is mentioned frequently in this book.
But knowledge is power, and I was determined to tackle this Beetlejuice head-on. Yet it seems the more we...more
Jan 17, 2011Cee rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Informative. The first hundred pages trace cancer's history, even way back to the Egyptian civilization. The next two hundred pages are about the long struggles in surgery, radiation and chemotherapy to fight cancer. Then the last two hundred pages launch into prevention, genetics and more pharmacology.
With the scientific terminology toned down and explained as best as the author could, I felt I was reading a quasi-textbook. Before the topic would become monotonous there were breaks in form of s...more
With the scientific terminology toned down and explained as best as the author could, I felt I was reading a quasi-textbook. Before the topic would become monotonous there were breaks in form of s...more
May 05, 2011David rated it liked it
This is an elegant, well-written book. Parts of the book read like a detective story, and are very engrossing. However, I really take issue with the short shrift that the book gives to research on cancer prevention. Now, the author readily admits that big strides toward conquering cancer will not occur by only finding cures--prevention is just as important. But, while the book has several chapters on the connection between smoking and lung cancer, no attention is paid to research related to othe...more
Apr 01, 2011Andy Perdue rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This was a mammoth undertaking of research and writing. As a survivor/thriver, I found the book fascinating - and glad I live in the age I do. I think those who read this should also read 'Anticancer: A New Way of Life' by Dr. David Servan-Shreiber. He's a two-time survivor who uses science to show how we can avoid/mitigate cancer, and it shows a side of the disease that isn't covered in this outstanding work.
Jun 24, 2010Anna Balasi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
So far, I'm completely enthralled/moved/disturbed! I never realized that a book about the history of Cancer could keep me reading on. I'm not a doctor or a nurse, though I've had a close member of the family pass away from Cancer, and perhaps that's what keeps me going, since I've been morbidly fascinated and terrified of the disease since.
The chapters I've read have been so hard to get through (it has so far covered childhood Lukemia (lord, the tears!), mastectomies, surgery without anesthesia,...more
The chapters I've read have been so hard to get through (it has so far covered childhood Lukemia (lord, the tears!), mastectomies, surgery without anesthesia,...more
May 15, 2014Alex rated it it was amazing
A terrific, comprehensive look at the history and mechanics of cancer, starting at Imhotep and ending at the no-longer-quite-literal bleeding edge of science. Mukherjee is an engaging and very careful writer; you get the sense that he pored over each sentence to make it as clear as possible. It worked, too.
For we book nerds, he's scattered references to a wonderful variety of books throughout: Herodotus, Italo Calvino and Joan Didion all make their way in here, as well as this sentence, to which...more
For we book nerds, he's scattered references to a wonderful variety of books throughout: Herodotus, Italo Calvino and Joan Didion all make their way in here, as well as this sentence, to which...more
Jun 24, 2018K.J. Charles added it
Absolutely astonishing history of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and the search for causes. It's extremely well written and intensely, compellingly readable, with some pretty terrifying details, and completely clear even for this scientific illiterate. Mukherjee never loses sight of the humanity of researchers or patients, which helps us understand decisions, responses and deductions that look pretty shonky from the outside.
Some of this is rage inducing, no less because of the extremely calm pres...more
Some of this is rage inducing, no less because of the extremely calm pres...more
Oct 12, 2017María Alcaide rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A great compilation on all cancer related, from history to biology, treatments, future perspectives and clinical cases. Though a big dense book, with tons of information, it is greatly written and explained in a way everyone can understand. For those not much into science or medicine it can be a bit hard. As said, it is huge and tells so many things, but worth reading anyhow. From my point of view, the view of a trained scientist with some cancer knowledge, and a lover of medicine, science and h...more
I first heard about this book a year back and was sure I would never read it. Medical non-fiction is not something I want to wrap my head around. So finally when I did pick it up from the library it was because a young acquaintance was undergoing chemotherapy and I thought it was perhaps 'important' to understand cancer.
I am surprised at what a gripping read the book turned out to be. I ran through the initial 100 or so pages that chronicle the first instances of cancer in history. Mukherjee's...more
Oct 22, 2011K rated it liked itI am surprised at what a gripping read the book turned out to be. I ran through the initial 100 or so pages that chronicle the first instances of cancer in history. Mukherjee's...more
Shelves: couldntfinish, lord-help-me-im-just-not-that-brigh, readablenonfiction
Sigh.
I really wanted to be intellectual enough for this book. I loved walking around with it, carrying it into my pediatrician's office -- see, doctor? I may be a lowly layperson, but I too can read doctor books! (He didn't notice.) And for the first 100 pages, I was excited. Yes! I can like this! It's interesting and engaging, and I'm learning a lot!
But at 150 pages, my attention started to flag, and so did my enjoyment. Thank God, I'm just not that curious about cancer. Not enough to slog thro...more
I really wanted to be intellectual enough for this book. I loved walking around with it, carrying it into my pediatrician's office -- see, doctor? I may be a lowly layperson, but I too can read doctor books! (He didn't notice.) And for the first 100 pages, I was excited. Yes! I can like this! It's interesting and engaging, and I'm learning a lot!
But at 150 pages, my attention started to flag, and so did my enjoyment. Thank God, I'm just not that curious about cancer. Not enough to slog thro...more
Oct 05, 2017Pequete rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I am trying to decide which of the two books I read so far by Siddhartha Mukherjee I liked more: this one, or The Gene and I can't make up my mind because both of them are SO good! If somebody had told me a book about cancer could be such a page turner, I would have never believed it. As far as I can understand, this is a very accurate book from the scientific point of view, it has a lot about the history of medicine, from ancient times until the present but it also has real stories about real p...more
Jul 25, 2011Rebecca rated it it was amazing Shelves: science, biographical, illness-and-death, absolute-favorites, history, pulitzer-prize
This magisterial history of cancer won a 2011 Pulitzer Prize, though not for History (that went to a new book about the Civil War) or, as Mukherjee more whimsically categorizes his own book, Biography (that went to a biography of George Washington); instead, he won in the General Nonfiction category, which, though prosaic, is certainly appropriate for a work of scientific journalism. The Emperor of all Maladies reminded me most of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the previous year’s popular...more
Nov 30, 2010Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing Shelves: science, zz-5star, history, z2012, non-fiction, cancer, readbooks-male-author-or-illust, reviewed
I am not sure what to say about this book except that I think it’s a masterpiece. Though I took over five months to read it, I found everything about it fascinating.
I have to say that I felt an urgency to read this book before receiving a cancer diagnosis. My mother died of cancer before my twelfth birthday, and ever since then I’ve enjoyed reading books about cancer (fiction, biographies, general non-fiction, medical textbooks, all of them) and have been terrified about getting it. In fact, wit...more
Mar 31, 2015David rated it really liked it · review of another editionI have to say that I felt an urgency to read this book before receiving a cancer diagnosis. My mother died of cancer before my twelfth birthday, and ever since then I’ve enjoyed reading books about cancer (fiction, biographies, general non-fiction, medical textbooks, all of them) and have been terrified about getting it. In fact, wit...more
Recommends it for: cancer survivors, cancer patients, potential future cancer patients
Shelves: audiobook, non-fiction, science, medicine
In 2001, I suffered from increasing shortness of breath over a period of several weeks. At first I thought I was just out of shape, then I thought it was a recurrence of childhood asthma, then I went to the clinic of the university where I was attending grad school at the time to get chest x-rays, and the next day someone was sent to pull me out of class and tell me I should go see a doctor like, now.
They thought I had pneumonia, but in fact, it turned out to be a grapefruit-size tumor pressing...more
They thought I had pneumonia, but in fact, it turned out to be a grapefruit-size tumor pressing...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| NonFiction Pulitzers:Emperor of Maladies: May/June 2019 Group Read | 29 | 24 | Jun 06, 2019 11:31AM |
| Around the Year i...:The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee | 1 | 10 | Jan 22, 2019 05:01AM |
| Goodreads Librari...:Book that Exists but Differently | 2 | 28 | Nov 15, 2017 12:43AM |
| boosthightestosterones.com/cannabinoid-complex-cbd/ | 1 | 6 | Sep 13, 2017 10:29PM |
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Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New...more
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“History repeats, but science reverberates.” — 92 likes
“The art of medicine is long, Hippocrates tells us, 'and life is short; opportunity fleeting; the experiment perilous; judgment flawed.” — 69 likes