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Sci is dealing with some personal stuff right now, and can't keep up with my usual posting regimen. Instead, today I'd like to offer up a book recommendation: The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
The Emperor of All Maladies is a fascinating (though not remotely uplifting) account of the history of mankind's battle with cancer. It documents the first recorded appearances thousands of years ago, and continues to the present day, detailing our growing understanding of cancer as a disease and describing how we have learned to treat it. It's a compelling account that shows how incredibly far we've come, but puts it into perspective how all that we have achieved is an infinitesimally small amount of all that cancer is.
It's definitely not a happy read, but it's incredibly informative, beautifully written, and easy to understand. It's something that I think that everyone needs to read, as we all will be facing someone in our lives with cancer someday.