Book · 2010
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Siddhartha Mukherjee traces cancer from ancient Egyptian scrolls calling it untreatable to his own oncology ward, and calls the four-thousand-year fight a biography, not a history.
What does Reddit think of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer?
r/AskScience carries most of this one, and it doesn't hedge. 'Very good (Pulitzer winning)' opens the top comment; 'wonderful' opens the second. That's a lot of agreement for a subreddit that usually argues about methodology instead of adjectives. r/suggestmeabook's smaller sample runs positive too, more decisively than AskScience does, with the ↑32 comment calling it flatly excellent for anyone trying to understand cancer as a disease. The one real caveat walks itself back in the same breath: the ↑84 comment calls it 'a bit dense because it's on cancer' before immediately adding 'very readable.' It keeps company with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Youngest Science in these threads, cited as the more clinical companion to Lacks' more personal story. That's about as close to unanimous as this catalogue gets.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · A four-thousand-year history of cancer treatment, framed as a biography of the disease itself
- · The 'dense but readable' caveat that walks itself back in the same sentence
- · Paired with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as the more clinical companion piece
Common praise
- + The ↑250 comment leads with 'very good (Pulitzer winning)' before it even explains what the book covers.
- + The ↑32 r/suggestmeabook comment calls it excellent for understanding cancer as an illness, not just a diagnosis.
- + The ↑84 comment calls it dense, then immediately corrects itself: 'very readable.'
Common criticism
- − The density warning in the ↑84 comment is the only real friction in this dataset, and even that commenter answers their own objection.
- − At 29 tracked mentions total, this is a small sample to be running this positive on, worth noting even though nothing here contradicts it.
Who it's for
Curiosity about how cancer treatment got to where it is now is the entry point, not a personal health worry: these threads are r/AskScience explainer requests, not support-group referrals. Pair it with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks if you want the personal story alongside the clinical sweep; commenters here already read them that way. Budget real time for it; even the people calling it 'very readable' flag the density first.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“There's a very good (Pulitzer winning) book about the history of the treatment of cancer and our understanding of it, titled "The Emperor of All Maladies." I highly recommend it if you want to know more about how we got here from drinking turpentine with opium...
“There's a wonderful book on the history of cancer called The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee that I would highly recommend (it's a bit dense because it's on cancer but is very readable the author does a great job)
“There are two interesting books about human medicine that bring this home. “The Emperor of All Maladies,” is about the history of cancer treatment, and, “The Youngest Science,” is a personal perspective from a doctor who practiced starting in the era of Sulfa drugs and continuing through the 1970s. …
“This. 1000%. The only other factor is the prevalence of carcinogens. Per-capita epidemiological incidence (meaning what number of people per 100 get it) of cancer theoretically should have peaked a decade or two after the industrial revolution, when humans were the most exposed to poor working con…
“If you’re interested in the history of cancer and its treatment, take a look at “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” by Siddhartha Mukherjee. In it, he describes the evolution of cancer diagnosis and treatment through time. One conclusion is that our ability to screen for and interve…
“If you want something about understanding cancer as an illness The Emperor of All Maladies is excellent.
“I applaud u/dnsanfnssmfmsdndsj1 for providing a listing of the key cellular changes that a normal cell undergoes as it transforms and add mention that a cell must undergo approximately 15 DNA mutations to arrive at this state. If the OP (or anybody) wants to learn more about these changes, in addit…
“I highly recommend the pulitzer prize winning book *The Emperor of All Maladies* by Siddhartha Mukheerjee if you are further interested in cancer and its history, as it covers the history of cancer and the discoveries of the earliest chemotherapy research through Sidney Farber, regarded as "the fath…
“I didn't really appreciate this fully even though I'm in basic research until I read _The Emperor of All Maladies_. Such a great introduction to the history and discoveries in cancer treatment.
“I see so many good answers here but I would like to throw out a recommendation to read the book “the emperor of all maladies” which is a biography of cancer. It is a really good source written by an oncologist regarding the history of cancer treatments.
“For an incredible read on the history of cancer, I highly recommend The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It's about a thousand pages long and extremely readable. Also won the Pulitzer.
“General non fiction though, but The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer was an equally horrifying (and enlightening) read for me. It also won the Pulitzer!
“I listened to The Emperor of All Maladies on audiobook, and it was quite good.
“Some well-researched books I really enjoyed are The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Braiding Sweetgrass, and Big Friendship.
“I highly recommend The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. It centers on the discovery of blood cancers and the need to discover chemical treatments because up to that point the only treatment for cancer was surgi…
Convinced? Pick up The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
What else does r/AskScience read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer — frequently asked
Is The Emperor of All Maladies worth reading?+
Yes, with unusual agreement for this dataset. The top r/AskScience comment (↑250) opens with 'very good (Pulitzer winning),' the second (↑84) calls it wonderful, and r/suggestmeabook's ↑32 comment calls it excellent. No comment here pushes back on that verdict.
Is The Emperor of All Maladies hard to read?+
A little, per the one commenter who raises it. The ↑84 comment calls it 'a bit dense because it's on cancer,' then immediately adds 'very readable' in the same breath. Treat it as thorough rather than difficult.
Should I read The Emperor of All Maladies or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks first?+
Reddit treats them as a pair rather than competitors. The ↑21 r/AskScience comment recommends both back to back, framing Henrietta Lacks as the personal story and this one as the clinical history around it. Order doesn't seem to matter much in these threads.