Emperor of All Maladies

Great book. Don't ever read it.

I'm kidding of course. This book took me a little while to get through because it's such an emotionally deep subject. I really don't know how Cara manages to work in a cancer biology lab without going bonkers. The book begins with some of Mukherjee's first encounters with cancer, and the progression of these are interlaced into the academic history of the subject, which is fascinating. Again and again an ossified dogma had to be overthrown by a preponderance of evidence. It's also kind of amazing all the things we still don't know.

Of course, the whole time I read the book every little ache or pain was likely the first harbinger of the cancer by which I would meet my eventual demise. Would it not be the perfect irony that this book led me to discover my own cancer. How silly the brain works. I don't have cancer and it's unlikely that I would. I should probably read up more on medicine so I can get my brain past obsessive self-diagnosis. It's so stressful though.