The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist gets his readers up and personal with Cancer through a voluminous history of all the major types of cancer. He scours historical texts, medical journals and all public sources to document the earliest cases, various variants of the disease, treatment procedures, research methodologies and how and why some forms of cancer have a better recovery rate than others.

This is not a book for the faint hearted. Not in the least because of the terminology or technicalities but for the length and the emotional upheaval it causes as you read the various stories of cancer victims. If you want to learn more about the disease and how the current state of treatments were developed, no other book may come close.