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Cover of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Book · Adult

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

A Biography of Cancer

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

720 pages · 2025

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About the book

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 100 BOOK OF THE CENTURY * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A TIME ALL-TIME 100 NONFICTION BOOK

Updated with FOUR NEW MAJOR CHAPTERS illuminating the new developments in cancer detection, prevention, treatment, and understanding in the fifteen years since the book’s first publication, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer.

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies became an instant classic when it was published in 2010. A magnificent, humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic 20th century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence—The Emperor of All Maladies is one of the most highly acclaimed books of its time.

In the years since Mukherjee dazzled readers with The Emperor of All Maladies, much has changed in the universe of cancer—in our understanding of its causes; in our attempts to prevent it; and in the revolutionary new treatments. In four profound and revelatory new chapters—essentially a new book about cancer—he illuminates this disease with both a bird’s eye view of the landscape and an acute focus on the role of the cell. He also looks at imminent new studies—and to the future.

Riveting, audacious, and now more urgent than ever in this vast update, The Emperor of All Maladies is a masterpiece.

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