I found this supremely well written, balanced between the smooth telling of a suspense (who-done-it?) and just enough grounding in science history to keep both strands readable. He kept the human context alive with the patients he followed and he showed humility in the way he never presumed to be more than a learner even after he became a qualified specialist. The best science books are those that kindle the feeling of awe at life and the universe. Here there is awe at the perseverance of many to find cures and even awe at the incredible wily supreme survivor, the disease itself. The only reason I didn't give 5-stars was because there wasn't enough of the patients perspectives, but perhaps I'm being unfair, the subtitle is "a biography of Cancer" after all.

And so it is that I give two romance books this week 4 and 5 stars, and yet a Pulitzer Prize winner with a concept I am quite interested in had me thinking that this was how I would die: Listening to the most sterile prose in existence, which even a seemingly decent narrator couldn’t make compelling. Needless to say, after about two hours I decided life was too short. The premise is compelling and the history it begins with is sometimes fascinating. But the voice characterizes the subject matter with a high degree of banality. I have to imagine it reads better, but typically with somewhat dry subject matter the audiobook is the way to go for me, so I highly doubt it would change. A shame, but no big deal. I’m bound to find books I don’t get on with to this degree with the level of books I consume these days. But was particularly sad about this one, as I was looking forward to it.