I just finished this book after reading nothing else for the past three or four days. It’s riveting and spellbinding, an epic story about an epic disease. Mukherjee is an oncologist himself and his inside knowledge, not to mention his obviously astute research, brings a quiet authority to his tale.
My father died of cancer. So have some of my friends. I also know many survivors of cancer. Most people do, since the disease is so prevalent. This book describes the efforts of scientists and doctors who have struggled to understand and defeat cancer. It details moments of great triumph, and times when the principals displayed poor judgement and dangerous stubbornness. Today many cancers can be cured by medication which takes advantage of what has been learned of the genetic machinations of cancer cells. The Emperor of All Maladies traces the history of how we got to this point and how we might continue from here.
It’s a terrific read. It pulls no punches in relating the misery and death that cancer has wrought. But it also points to a hopeful future when cancer might become a frightening memory rather than a terrifying reality.
Very highly recommended.
I was putting together a dish for a potluck, but I was away from my home library, and the book with the recipe for the potato salad I wanted, Recipes For a Small Planet, was not at any local bookstore, not in any local branch of the library, not on Google books, and not on Amazon’s Look Inside feature. So I went to this nifty site called Worldcat and found a library in Montana, the Swan Valley branch of the Missoula Public Library, which had the book on its shelf. I called them up and explained my situation and the woman who answered the phone plucked the book from the shelf and read me the recipe over the phone. And she was happy to do it. That’s why I LOVE libraries.
The internet has changed the definition of a magazine. For example, Daily Science Fiction is an online magazine that delivers its content to subscribers by e-mail. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, DSF sends out a short story to everyone on its subscription list. Last Monday, November 1st, they emailed my story “Faith.” Now they’ve put it up on their website for all the world to read.
I sometimes do story time for preschool children at the library where I work. Often the books I choose to read leave the kids distinctly underwhelmed. I’m always on the look out for good stories that don’t bore them to distraction. Kids are a tough audience! I’m happy to report that I found an exceptional version of the Goldilocks story, Goldie and the Three Bears, written and illustrated by Diane Stanley. It’s the classic Goldilocks story, updated to a suburban setting. My audience of 3- and 4-year-olds were absolutely mesmerized by this book. Not one of them moved a muscle the whole time. I enjoyed it, too. The book has charm, smarts, a touch of danger and transgression, and a marvelously spirited central character, Goldie, who knows exactly what she likes, and when she finds it, she loves it with all her heart.
I’ve jumped into the e-book revolution. Click on the stories tab at the top of the page and take a look at my first e-book short story. More coming soon.
Breaking Waves, a benefit anthology to help people affected by the recent oil gusher disaster in the Gulf, has just been released. Official press release here:
Book View Café Publishes Benefit Anthology for Gulf Relief
Book View Café has launched their benefit anthology, BREAKING WAVES. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief Fund of the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
The collection features over thirty stories by a wide range of best-selling and award-winning authors, including a previously-unpublished poem from Nebula and Hugo award-winner Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as a chapter from Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book The Sea Around Us. Authors contributing stories of environmental rescue and recovery include Vonda N. McIntyre, Judith Tarr, Deborah Ross, Sarah Monette, David D. Levine, David Gessner, and Lyda Morehouse among others. Tiffany Trent and Phyllis Irene Radford edited the collection.
The book is available in epub, pdf, mobi, and prc formats in the Book View Café bookstore and will be coming to the Kindle store soon.
So far the book is available only in electronic formats, but a print version is coming soon. My poem “Suicide Note” is in the anthology and I am very pleased to be part of this project. No contributor is making a dime from the book: we all donated our words for the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief Fund.
FictionDaily posts links to three stories every day from around the web. Today they’re featuring my recent tale “28 Ways to Look at Illness.“
Most of us at some point have to contend with failures in our health. It’s not a pleasant subject to contemplate, but unpleasant subjects are often doorways to literature. A while ago I explored the subject off illness and how it hurts people and relationships. The result was a story composed of short vignettes. Annalemma, a fine online and print magazine, liked it enough to feature it on their website. The story is called “28 Ways to Look at Illness” and you can read it here.
qarrtsiluni is a nifty little online magazine which has been very friendly to my work. They’ve published three of my pieces so far. The latest, which went live today, is “Moleskin,” part of the current theme, New Classics, which asked contributors to re-imagine classic works of art, classic objects, classic themes, classic anything. I chose to take a look at that funny little notebook with the elastic band on it that goes by the brand name “Moleskin.” Their ads always mention how their design is “classic.” Such chutzpah practically begged to be reinterpreted, and I could not resist the temptation.
I am very pleased to announce that the fine people at the Speculative Literature Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting literary quality in speculative fiction, has done me the honor of naming me this year’s recipient of their Older Writers Grant. I can’t pretend any longer: my prodigy days are definitely over!
