A Blog on Books

After reading, finishing, and sitting with The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer , I feel confident saying this is not only one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read — it’s also my personal favourite in the popular science genre. Last year, I read The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human , also by Siddhartha Mukherjee. While I appreciated the ideas it explored, it didn’t leave quite the same impression. So I approached The Emperor of All Maladies somewhat cautiously, unsure of what to expect after a lukewarm experience with his more recent work. In hindsight, I’m so glad I picked it up. I’m already thinking about revisiting The Song of the Cell with fresh eyes and reading more of Mukherjee’s work. An Emotional and Scientific Journey This book is not always an easy read emotionally — cancer is a heavy, deeply human topic. In my undergraduate classes, I learned about the biology of cancer in a clinical, detached way: the mechanisms behin...

Reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins was enlightening and challenging. It's an iconic book, one of the most influential in evolutionary biology, I believe bested only by Charles Darwin himself. I haven’t read On the Origin of Species yet but would love to give it a read at some point. This book offers a look into a gene's role as the central unit of evolution and natural selection. I don’t know exactly how I first came across this book, but what compelled me to read it was the fact that Richard Dawkins wrote a blurb praising Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World , which is probably my favourite work of science literature that I’ve come across. It's between that and Billions and Billions . Putting the title and author together, I decided it was worth a shot to tackle this monumental work. Dawkins has a way with words and can transform complex scientific concepts into thought-provoking arguments to support the “selfish gene” theory. Coming into this work, I mistak...