BOOK

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner, $30). An extraordinarily compelling history of a disease that once was unmentionable and is now a national obsession. Mukherjee's theme is the way in which the preternaturally stubborn resolve of generation after generation of cancer researchers has led them to make great scientific discoveries--then prevented them from seeing the flaws in their theories that are discovered by their successors. Sobering and splendidly well written (TT).