**A *New York Times* Notable Book of 2013
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When the woman he loved was diagnosed with a metastatic cancer, George Johnson set out to learn everything he could about the disease and the people who spend their careers trying to understand and to fight it. What he discovered is a revolution under way—an explosion of new ideas about what cancer really is and where it comes from.

Deftly excavating and illuminating decades of investigation and analysis, rooted in every discipline from evolutionary biology to game theory and physics, Johnson explores what we know—and what we still don't—about cancer, and why a cure remains such a slippery goal. Throughout his pursuit, Johnson clarifies the human experience of cancer with grace, bearing witness to the punishing gauntlet of consultations, surgeries, targeted therapies, and other treatments. Through Johnson’s radiant prose and authoritative perspective on science, he takes us on an adventure through the history and recent advances in cancer research that will challenge everything you thought you knew about the disease.

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### From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. It's his wife Nancy's grueling fight against a rare and rabid uterine cancer that prompts science writer Johnson (The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments) to delve into the efforts to study, treat, and beat what Siddhartha Mukherjee dubbed The Emperor of All Maladies. This elegant and insightful chronicle is at once intensely personal and meticulously studious, focusing not just on one cancer, but on the evolution of all cancers. He finds it comforting... knowing that cancer has always been with us, that it is not all our fault, that you can take every precaution and still something in the genetic coils can become unsprung. Cancer, he explains, can be blamed on factors that have been present for a long time (the disease beset even prehistoric dinosaurs). In fact, researchers are finding that any one case of cancer may have multiple causes, whether environmental, hereditary, or elusive… bad luck. Cancer, he concludes, is a phenomenon that is mostly random. Yet we are getting a clearer picture of how it works: cancer's metabolic puzzle may lie in how the body stores and uses energy… Insulin, estrogen, obesity, cancer—all are tied in to the same metabolic knot. This is extraordinary scholarship delivered with an intimate poignancy. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Aug. 30)

### From Booklist

Science writer Johnson (The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, 2008) tackles cancer on a technical and personal level. He concludes that “cancer is a disease of information.” Although a single renegade cell can kindle a tumor, that cell still has hurdles to overcome—avoiding apoptosis (programmed cell death) and growing its own blood supply (angiogenesis). Cancers can be caused by chemicals, radiation, and viruses, but certain behaviors are instigators, too. Tobacco use accounts for as many as 30 percent of cases. A sedentary lifestyle and obesity increase your chances of the disease. Dinosaurs with malignancies, rebellious mitochondria, and other attention-grabbing characters populate the book. Sadly fascinating are the rare medical personnel who’ve accidentally inoculated themselves with cancer cells and acquired the disease (including a woman who developed colon cancer in her hand). Johnson’s discussion of the science of cancer is entwined with two tales of loss. Despite aggressive treatment, his youngest brother dies from cancer of the head and neck. His wife is diagnosed with uterine cancer and recovers, but their 17-year marriage ends. --Tony Miksanek