Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Nov 2010
592 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificently written "biography" of cancer - from its origins to the epic battle to cure, control, and conquer it.
"Starred Review. Mukherjee's formidable intelligence and compassion produce a stunning account of the effort to disrobe the 'emperor of maladies.'" - Publishers Weekly
"With this riveting and moving book, Siddhartha Mukherjee joins the first rank of those rare doctor-authors who can wield a pen as gracefully as a scalpel: Jerome Groopman, Atul Gawande, Richard Selzer. A magisterial, wise, and deeply human piece of writing." - Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost and Bury the Chains
"Sid Mukherjee's book is a pleasure to read, if that is the right word. Cancer today is widely regarded as the worst of all the diseases from which one might suffer -- if only because it is fast becoming the most common. Dr. Mukherjee explains how this perception came about, how cancer has been regarded across the years and what is now being done to treat its protean forms. His book is the clearest account I have read on this subject. With The Emperor of All Maladies, he joins that small fraternity of practicing doctors who can not just talk about their profession but write about it." - Tony Judt, author of Postwar and Ill Fares the Land
"The Emperor of All Maladies beautifully describes the nature of cancer from a patient's perspective and how basic research has opened the door to understanding this disease." - Bert Vogelstein, Director, Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins University
"A labor of love
as comprehensive as possible." - George Canellos, M.D., William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
"Rarely have the science and poetry of illness been so elegantly braided together as they are in this erudite, engrossing, kind book. Mukherjee's clinical wisdom never erases the personal tragedies which are its occasion; indeed, he locates with meticulous clarity and profound compassion the beautiful hope buried in cancer's ravages." - Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon
This information about The Emperor of All Maladies was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer and The Gene: An Intimate History, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction, and The Laws of Medicine. He is the editor of Best Science Writing 2013.
Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and Cell. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
Name Pronunciation
Siddhartha Mukherjee: sih-DART-uh MOO-ker-jee
"Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time."
—Sappho, fragment ...
Ghost Season
by Fatin Abbas
A beautifully orchestrated debut connecting five people caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.
Wade in the Water
by Nyani Nkrumah
A gripping debut novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class set in a small Mississippi town in the early 1980s.
This Other Eden
by Paul Harding
A novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Tinkers.
A library is thought in cold storage
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.