
Barbarous flesh-excising surgeries, debilitating radiation therapy, poisonous chemotherapy drugs — treatments for cancer have been as severe on the human body as the disease. Yet the tale of cancer is more than just a medical one. Like any great modern story, it’s a saga filled with outsize personalities and political struggles and wads of money. Siddhartha Mukherjee calls his Pulitzer Prize–winning account a cancer “biography” — a word chosen carefully and appropriately. Mukherjee, an oncologist and cancer researcher, has impressively painted a life (from ancient Egypt to the advancements of today) of a scourge that is crafty and ceaseless and ever present. This is Mukherjee’s first book. It is also one of the best-written, most accessible, most relevant science books ever penned.