The first of Siddharta Mukherjee’s three books (the others are The Gene and The Song of the Cell), The Emperor of All Maladies is a masterfully-written chronicle of cancer and oncology. Mukherjee describes it as “a biography of cancer,” but it’s also the story of the scientists and surgeons, the doctors and demonstrators who rallied to fight it.

I’ve been reading a lot of books about medicine and history lately. While I’m not really interested in going into medicine as a profession, I love learning about the science behind treatments and the events that led up to important discoveries. I read this book on the recommendation of my parents and my aunt (and also because I had read Mukherjee’s later books). I’d recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand cancer—be it to comprehend their own struggles, those of friends and family, or for more academic reasons.