8.5/10I have started writing this review a few times, but due to recent events, I've found it extremely hard to finish. This is such a well crafted and deeply researched book. It has seemingly everything you could want from and overview of cancer and at the same time makes some complex subjects pretty relatable. It did become both comforting and extremely frustrating to realize that some of what I was going through, thousands had gone through before. Cancer is still a big part of our society and most likely will be for many more years. I'm not sure if my timing of reading this was fortuitous or extremely unfortunate, but I am definitely glad I read it. Maybe I should have read it a couple years ago. Compelling narrative, gorgeous writing, fascinating topic. Working previously in cancer bioinformatics, I struggled to understand our medical obsession with cancer and our stubborn belief that we will "cure" it. The historical and metaphorical context provided by this book has left me with a clearer sense of the unique place of cancer occupies genetics, biology and medicine. The book also makes a point of following the journeys of individual scientists, from Vesalius to Farber to Watson to Doll, as they struggle with decades of uncertainty and acrimonious disagreements. Definitely gave a fairly realistic picture of the social and paradigmatic way scientific theories are developed. I didn't realize how close we were to finding the genetic basis of cancer in the early 1900s; the discovery of the Rous sarcoma virus overshadowed this theory so entirely that the consensus coalesced around a viral origin of cancer.
Do You like book O Imperador De Todos Os Males (2010)?
Read in norwegian. What a interesting and wellwritten book!
—menna
A must read for us survivors who have enduring curiosities.
—Steven
