This book won the Pulitzer for best nonfiction in 2010, and I can see why. Mukherjee shadows researchers in their Ahab-like quest to find the origins and the cure for cancer. We learn about the early developments for the cancer treatments of surgery, radiology and chemotherapy and the subsequent refinements for each. Mukherjee does an excellent job portraying the character of several cancer researchers, showing how science is dynamic, interested and perspectival. Much of the book traces the history and development of cancer research; however, the author at times switches gears from describing a complex puzzle to highlighting the impact cancer has on the people struggling to combat this unrelenting disease. He also balances the scientific detail with epigraphs from literature and history and with references to works such as Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor.

What I found interesting is how cancer research over the centuries reflects humankind's worldview. During the centuries where Galen's theories of the four humors prevailed, people thought cancer was an excess of bile and rejected surgery because they thought the bile would spread. Then during the early 20th Century, people used war metaphors to describe cancer treatment. Now the focus is on the cellular level, using genetics as the most influential discipline. Although Mukherjee doesn't state this overtly, I see today's genetic-based research and treatment as using analogies from computer programming. As a society, we have to discover the specific way cancer is encoded so we can learn how to reprogram cancer in order to save the patient.

The book can be demanding because of its length and its technical detail, so if you only have time and the constitution to read two passages, read these: On p. 391, the author has a 6 point description of cancer's characteristics, which focuses on cellular processes of growth gone wild. His more succinct commentary is contained in a single sentence from p. 388: "Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves."