Cancer in Books
The books people reach for after a cancer diagnosis — memoirs, histories, caregiver guides, survivorship handbooks, and cookbooks for eating through treatment. Each page explains what the book actually contains, who it suits, and where it sits against current guidance from NCI, CDC, and the USPSTF.
Articles about Cancer in Books
Cancer in Books
Anticancer Living: a lifestyle book read against NCI
A look at the Mix of Six lifestyle program in Anticancer Living, read against what NCI and the American Cancer Society say about diet, activity, and evidence.
7 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
Anticancer: A New Way of Life, checked against evidence
David Servan-Schreiber wrote Anticancer after a brain cancer diagnosis at 31. What NCI and the American Cancer Society say about his lifestyle claims, and where they differ.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
Autobiography of a Face: Ewing sarcoma and its aftermath
Lucy Grealy's memoir of Ewing sarcoma of the jaw at nine, and the reconstruction that followed for decades. What NCI says about Ewing sarcoma and late effects.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Being Mortal: what hospice actually covers
Atul Gawande on aging, dying and what medicine gets wrong. What the book covers, and what Medicare hospice and NCI palliative care guidance say.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Between Two Kingdoms: leukemia, transplant, and after
Suleika Jaouad had leukemia and a bone marrow transplant in her twenties. Her memoir is about survivorship, plus what NCI says on AML and late effects.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Cancer Caregiving A-to-Z: A Reference Book, Not a Story
The American Cancer Society's A-to-Z caregiving reference, checked against NCI guidance on what caregiving involves and how to protect yourself.
7 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Cancer in Books: A Reading List of 50, and How to Read Them
Fifty books people reach for after a cancer diagnosis — memoirs, histories, caregiver guides and cookbooks — grouped by what they are actually for.
11 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Cancer Is a Word, Not a Sentence: the first few weeks
Robert Buckman's guide to the first weeks after a cancer diagnosis, and what NCI actually says happens between a diagnosis and a treatment plan.
7 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Cancer Vixen: a graphic memoir of breast cancer
Marisa Acocella Marchetto's graphic memoir of breast cancer found weeks before her wedding, while uninsured. Plus NCI on treatment order and costs.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Chasing My Cure: a doctor who ran his own clinical trial
David Fajgenbaum's memoir of driving research on his own rare, cancer-like disorder. What it teaches about clinical trials, and why it isn't a template.
4 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
Chemo, Craziness and Comfort: a parent's field guide
Nancy Keene's short guide gathers what parents of children with cancer say helps. What it covers well, what it can't, and what NCI says today.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Childhood Leukemia: Nancy Keene's guide and NCI today
Nancy Keene's long-running guide for families of children with leukemia, compared with NCI's current account of childhood ALL treatment and risk groups.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book: a lasting reference
Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book is a breast health reference by a breast surgeon. How to use it, compared with current USPSTF, CDC and NCI guidance.
7 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Dying: A Memoir: Cory Taylor on melanoma and control
Cory Taylor wrote this short book weeks before dying of melanoma in 2016. What it says about control at the end, and what federal sources say on planning.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Eating Well Through Cancer: a cookbook and an oncologist
Holly Clegg and oncologist Gerald Miletello paired recipes with notes on side effects. What that adds, and what NCI's nutrition guidance says.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Everything Happens for a Reason: stage IV colon cancer
Kate Bowler's memoir of stage IV colon cancer at 35 and the prosperity gospel. Plus USPSTF screening from 45 and the symptoms NCI names.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Extreme Measures: the ICU and what palliative care offers
A book by an ICU and palliative care doctor on aggressive end-of-life care, set beside how NCI and Medicare describe palliative care and hospice.
7 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Helping Your Children Cope with Your Cancer: the talk
A parent-founded guide to telling children about a cancer diagnosis, checked against what NCI actually advises to say at each age.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick: book review
Letty Cottin Pogrebin's 2013 guide for the people around a sick friend, and what NCI actually says about support networks, support groups and caregiver strain.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Illness as Metaphor: Sontag Against the Cancer Personality
Susan Sontag's 1978 essay attacks the idea that cancer expresses a repressed personality. What NCI actually says causes cancer, and about attitude and stress.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
It's Always Something: a delayed ovarian cancer diagnosis
Gilda Radner's memoir of ten months of wrong answers before stage IV ovarian cancer. NCI on symptoms, why USPSTF advises against screening, and BRCA.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Living with Cancer: a step-by-step guide, reviewed
A 2017 guide to coping medically and emotionally with a serious cancer diagnosis, and how its palliative care themes match NCI.
5 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Malignant: how policy, not just biology, fails patients
Vinay Prasad's Malignant argues weak evidence and bad incentives shape cancer drug approval and screening. His claims, and current USPSTF and FDA standards.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
Mom's Cancer: metastatic lung cancer, drawn by family
Brian Fies's graphic memoir of his mother's metastatic lung cancer and the family managing it. Plus NCI on stages and palliative care, and CDC quitlines.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Overdiagnosed: Making the Case Against Finding Too Much
Overdiagnosed (2011) argues too much screening finds disease that would never cause harm. What USPSTF and NCI say about screening benefits and harms.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
Picking Up the Pieces: what survivorship involves
A therapist and a survivor wrote a guide to the emotional work after treatment ends. What it covers, compared with NCI on survivorship and follow-up.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Silent Spring: Rachel Carson and pesticide science now
Silent Spring (1962) linked pesticides to cancer and prompted regulatory action on DDT. What NIEHS, EPA and NCI now say about pesticide exposure and cancer risk.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Biology of Cancer: the textbook behind popular science
Robert Weinberg's The Biology of Cancer is the standard textbook. What it covers, who it's for, and how NCI explains the same science in plain language.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Breakthrough: what immunotherapy does, and how often
Charles Graeber's history of checkpoint inhibitors, checked against NCI on which cancers they treat, response rates and immune-related side effects.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Bright Hour: metastatic breast cancer at 37
Nina Riggs was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37 and told within a year it was terminal. What her memoir does, and what USPSTF says about screening ages.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Cancer Chronicles: how little we fully understand
George Johnson's account of cancer's biology and mysteries, written after his wife's diagnosis, checked against NCI on genetic and environmental causes.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Cancer Journals: what has changed since 1980
Audre Lorde's 1980 account of breast cancer, mastectomy and the prosthesis she was told to wear. What has changed since, and what disparities data shows.
5 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: a recipe book, not a trial
Rebecca Katz's cookbook targets chemo side effects with recipes. What it gets right about appealing food, and what NCI says about diet and cancer.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The China Study: real data, bigger claims than evidence
The China Study draws sweeping conclusions from a nutrition survey. What NCI says about what diet evidence can and cannot prove.
4 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Death of Cancer: combination chemo and Hodgkin lymphoma
Vincent DeVita helped make Hodgkin lymphoma curable. What NCI says about cure rates now, the late effects of that cure, and survivorship follow-up.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Emperor of All Maladies, checked against care today
Siddhartha Mukherjee's Pulitzer-winning history of cancer, and how far treatment and cancer death rates have moved since it was published in 2010.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The First Cell: early detection and what screening can do
Azra Raza argues research should chase the first cancer cell. What NCI says screening can and can't do, overdiagnosis, and where MCED tests stand.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Human Side of Cancer: psycho-oncology and fear
Psychiatrist Jimmie Holland argued emotional distress deserves as much attention as tumors. What the book covers, and NCI on distress and support today.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Iceberg: a caregiver's record of a brain tumor
Marion Coutts on her husband's brain tumor taking his speech as their toddler learned to talk. NCI on brain tumors, caregivers, and telling children.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: consent and HeLa
Rebecca Skloot's book is about consent, race and a cell line. What informed consent and IRBs require now, and what NIH agreed with the Lacks family.
10 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Last Lecture: pancreatic cancer with no screening test
Randy Pausch's book is about how to live, not detection. What NCI says about pancreatic cancer symptoms and risk, and why USPSTF advises against screening.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Living Kitchen: an anti-inflammatory cookbook, reviewed
Two survivors built a cookbook from their own treatment. What it offers as a recipe collection, and what NCI and the American Cancer Society say about diet and cancer risk.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Middle Place: breast cancer and a father's illness
Kelly Corrigan's memoir of being a patient and her father's caregiver at once. Plus NCI on bladder cancer and looking after yourself while caring.
9 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
The Philadelphia Chromosome: a rare clean cancer story
Jessica Wapner's account of the discovery behind Gleevec, checked against NCI's current description of chronic myeloid leukemia and its targeted drugs.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Radium Girls: occupational cancer before it had a name
Kate Moore's history of dial painters poisoned by radium, and what federal guidance says today about radiation and occupational cancer risk.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Song of the Cell: a cancer doctor on what a cell is
Siddhartha Mukherjee explains cell biology through medicine, including cancer. What the book covers, its strengths, and NCI on cancer at the cell level.
7 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Truth in Small Doses: how cancer progress is measured
Clifton Leaf's critique of cancer research turns on measurement and money. FDA on survival versus surrogate endpoints, and how NCI's budget is structured.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
The Undying: Anne Boyer on triple-negative breast cancer
Anne Boyer's Pulitzer-winning book counts the cost of cancer. What SEER and NCI say about triple-negative breast cancer and financial toxicity.
9 min read · Intermediate
Cancer in Books
What to Eat During Cancer Treatment: the ACS cookbook
A cookbook titled What to Eat During Cancer Treatment, and what NCI's nutrition guidance says about eating during treatment.
3 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
When Breath Becomes Air: a screening that couldn't find it
Paul Kalanithi was 36, a neurosurgeon and a never-smoker with stage IV EGFR-positive lung cancer. Why no US lung screening program would have caught it early.
10 min read · Beginner
Cancer in Books
Your Brain After Chemo: what NCI says about chemo brain
A nuclear medicine doctor and a journalist wrote an early account of cancer-related cognitive changes. What it covers, compared with NCI guidance now.
9 min read · Beginner
Explore more topics
- Cancer Basics
- Cancer Types
- Treatments
- Side Effects
- Symptoms
- Possible Warning Signs & Body Changes
- Diagnosis & Staging
- Screening
- Prevention & Risk
- Clinical Trials
- Living With Cancer
- Caregivers
- Costs & Practical Help
- Carcinogens & Regulation
- Childhood Cancer
- Cancer Medicines Explained
- Exercise & Healthy Living
- Eating & Nutrition
- Survivor Stories & Public Figures
- Understanding Report Language
- Questions to Ask
- What to Expect
- Cancer & Daily Life
- Cancer Claim Check
- Life After Treatment
- Cancer on Screen
- Who Does What: Agencies & Organizations
Prefer to search? Try site search, browse the glossary, or ask a question with Ask Cancer Explained.