Welcome to the Cancer bookstore! Books are listed in alphabetical order by title. Click the title to read more about each book. Are we missing your favorite book? Click here to send us your recommendations.
- About Betty’s Boob
- The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying
- The Cancer Olympics
- Cancer Schmancer
- Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book
- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
- Everybody’s Got Something
- Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20’s and 30’s
- Flat: Reclaiming My Body from Breast Cancer
- F*ck Cancer: A totally inappropriate self-affirming adult coloring book (Totally Inappropriate Series)
- Heal: The Vital Role of Dogs in the Search for Cancer Cures
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- It’s Always Something: Twentieth Anniversary Edition
- Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home: A Memoir
- Living Out Loud: Sports, Cancer, and the Things Worth Fighting
- Milkshakes and Morphine
- Overcome: A Story of Intervention, Rescue, and Redemption; Our Cancer Survivorship Journey
- Pretty Sick: The Beauty Guide for Women with Cancer
- The Prostate Monologues: What Every Man Can Learn from My Humbling, Confusing, and Sometimes Comical Battle With Prostate Cancer
- Terminal Hope: What Cancer Taught Me About Living and Dying
- A Walk With Purpose: Memoir of a Bioentrepreneur
- Why I Wore Lipstick: To My Mastectomy
- Worms On Parachutes: Mystical Allies In My Cancer Survival
About Betty’s Boob
by Vero Cazot, Julie Rocheleau (Illustrator)
She lost her left breast, her job, and her guy. She does not know it yet, but this is the best day of her life.
An inspiring and surprisingly comedic tale of loss and acceptance told largely through silent sequential narrative, About Betty’s Boob is seminal work from master storytellers Véro Cazot and Julie Rocheleau.
The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying
by Nina Riggs
Poet and essayist Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer—one small spot. Within a year, she received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal.
How does a dying person learn to live each day “unattached to outcome”? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty? How does a young mother and wife prepare her two young children and adored husband for a loss that will shape the rest of their lives? How do we want to be remembered?
Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, Nina asks: What makes a meaningful life when one has limited time? “Profound and poignant” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Bright Hour is about how to make the most of all the days, even the painful ones. It’s about the way literature, especially Nina’s direct ancestor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and her other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. A powerful memoir from Natalie Golderg--the woman who changed the way writing is taught in this country--sharing her experience with cancer grounded in her practice of writing and Zen.
The Cancer Olympics
by Robin McGee
Diagnosed with a late-stage cancer, after years of bungled and inadequate medical attention...and then to discover that the best-practice chemotherapy is not available in your province. After her delayed diagnosis of colorectal cancer, Robin McGee reaches out to her community using a blog entitled “Robin’s Cancer Olympics.” Often uplifting and humourous, the blog posts and responses follow her into the harsh landscape of cancer treatment, medical regulation, and provincial politics. If she and her supporters are to be successful in lobbying the government for the chemotherapy, she must overcome many formidable and frightening hurdles. And time is running out. A true story, The Cancer Olympics is a suspenseful and poignant treatment of an unthinkable situation, an account of advocacy and survival that explores our deepest values regarding democracy, medicine, and friendship.
Cancer Schmancer
by Fran Drescher
The actress continues her life story and reveals how she overcame many obstacles and challenges, including cancer, and shares the insights and wisdom she learned along the way.
Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book
by Susan M. Love
For more than two decades, readers faced with a diagnosis of breast cancer have relied on Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book to guide them through the frightening thicket of research and opinion to find the best options for their particular situations. This sixth edition explains advances in targeted treatments, hormonal therapies, safer chemotherapy, and immunologic approaches as well as new forms of surgery and radiation. There is extensive guidance for the many women now living for years with metastatic breast cancer. With Dr. Love’s warm support, readers can sort the facts from the fads, ask the right questions, and recognize when a second opinion might be wise.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.
Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.
The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.
From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave may have cut off her diseased breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.
Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.
Everybody’s Got Something
by Robin Roberts and Veronica Chambers
So begins beloved Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts’s new memoir in which she recounts the incredible journey that’s been her life so far, and the lessons she’s learned along the way. With grace, heart, and humor, she writes about overcoming breast cancer only to learn five years later that she will need a bone marrow transplant to combat a rare blood disorder, the grief and heartbreak she suffered when her mother passed away, her triumphant return to GMA after her medical leave, and the tremendous support and love of her family and friends that saw her through her difficult times.
Following her mother’s advice to “make your mess your message,” Robin taught a nation of viewers that while it is true that we’ve all got something -- a medical crisis to face, aging parents to care for, heartbreak in all its many forms --- we’ve also all got something to give: hope, encouragement, a life-saving transplant or a spirit-saving embrace. As Robin has learned, and what readers of her remarkable story will come to believe as well, it’s all about faith, family and friends. And finding out that you are stronger, much stronger, than you think.
Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20’s and 30’s
by Kairol Rosenthal
On a shoestring budget and with tape recorder in hand, Kairol Rosenthal emerged from treatment and hit the road in search of other twenty- and thirtysomething cancer survivors. From the Big Apple to the Bible Belt, she dusted the sugarcoating off of the young adult cancer experience, exposing the gritty and compelling stories of twenty-five complete strangers. The men and women in Everything Changes confess their most vulnerable moments, revealing cancer experiences they never told anyone else—everything from what they thought about at night before going to bed to what they wish they could tell their lovers but were too afraid to.
With irreverent flare and practical wisdom, Everything Changes includes stories, how-to resources, and expert advice on issues that are important for young adult cancer patients, including:
- Dating and sex
- Medical insurance and the healthcare system
- Faith and spirituality
- Employment and career
- Fertility and adoption
- Friends and family
Flat: Reclaiming My Body from Breast Cancer
by Catherine Guthrie
As a young, queer woman, Catherine Guthrie had worked hard to feel at home in her body. However, after years writing about women’s health and breast cancer, Guthrie is thrust into the role of the patient after a devastating diagnosis at age thirty-eight. At least, she thinks, I know how to fight this.
She was wrong. In one horrifying moment after another, everything that could go wrong does—the surgeon gives her a double mastectomy but misses the cancerous lump, one of the most effective drug treatments fails, and a doctor’s error unleashes millions of breast cancer cells into her body.
Flat is Guthrie’s story of how two bouts of breast cancer shook her faith in her body, her relationship, and medicine. Along the way, she challenges the view that breasts are essential to femininity and paramount to a woman’s happiness. Ultimately, she traces an intimate portrayal of how cancer reshapes her relationship with Mary, her partner, revealing—in the midst of crisis—a love story.
Filled with candor, vulnerability, and resilience, Guthrie upends the “pink ribbon” narrative in unconventional ways and offers up a unique perspective on womanhood, what it means to be “whole,” and the importance of women advocating for their desires. Flat is a story of how she lost, and then found, the courage to listen to her body.
F*ck Cancer: A totally inappropriate self-affirming adult coloring book (Totally Inappropriate Series)
by Jen Meyers
If you are fighting cancer, this is for you. If your brother, sister, mom, dad, son, daughter, relative, or friend is fighting cancer, this is for you. If you’ve lost someone to cancer like I have, this is for you. If cancer affects your life in any way, this is for you.
The stress of cancer can feel crushing. But perhaps this book can help you get away from it all, if only for a little while, coloring your stress away and infusing your mind and body with some much-needed positivity. Every little bit helps. With 35 gorgeous and inspiring, single-sided, frameable designs inside ranging from simple to intricate, most include uplifting messages...from the socially acceptable “You’ve got the heart of a fighter” to the cheekily profane “You are stronger than this shit.”
So find a comfortable place to artistically unwind, raise your spirits, and boost your inner resolve to fight harder and keep going. For yourself and for those you love.
You can. You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Heal: The Vital Role of Dogs in the Search for Cancer Cures
by Arlene Weintraub
Drawn from extensive research, on-the-ground reporting, and personal experience, this book explores the fascinating role dogs are playing in the search for cures for cancer. Learn how veterinarians and oncologists are working together to discover new treatments — cutting-edge therapies designed to help both dogs and people suffering from cancer.
Heal introduces readers to the field of comparative oncology by describing several research projects aimed at finding new therapies for cancers that are similar in dogs and people, including lymphoma, osteosarcoma, breast cancer, melanoma, and gastric cancer. Weintraub, who lost her sister to gastric cancer, also writes about the emerging science behind the remarkable ability of dogs to sniff out early stage cancer and the efforts underway to translate that talent into diagnostic devices for early detection of the disease. In the course of bringing these dogs and their human companions to life, Weintraub takes her own personal journey from grief to healing, as she shows her readers how man’s best friend might be the key to unlocking the mysteries of cancer.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.
It’s Always Something: Twentieth Anniversary Edition
by Gilda Radner
To honor the twentieth anniversary of beloved comedienne Gilda Radner’s death from ovarian cancer comes a commemo- rative edition of her memoir, It’s Always Something—featuring a newly updated resource guide for people living with cancer and a tribute by Radner’s former colleagues at Saturday Night Live.
As a cast member on the original Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner created a compelling character named “Roseann Rosannadanna” who habitually ended her routine with the line, “It’s always something,” which was her father’s favorite expression about life. Radner chose the catch- phrase she made famous as the title to her brave, funny, and painfully honest memoir: the story of her struggle against cancer and her determination to continue laughing.
Gilda’s Club, a network of affiliate clubhouses that seeks to provide a social and emotional support community to people living with cancer, was founded in Radner’s memory in 1991. The name of the organization comes from a remark Gilda once made, that cancer gave her “membership to an elite club I’d rather not belong to.” In partnership with Gilda’s Club, It’s Always Something includes valuable information for all whose lives have been touched by cancer and reminds us of the important place laughter has in healing.
Told as only Gilda Radner could tell it, It’s Always Something is the inspiring story of a courageous, funny woman fighting to enjoy life no matter what the circumstances. She died in 1989. Gilda’s Club is distinguished by its unique philosophy and pro- gram, “cancer support for the whole family, the whole time.” Learn more about Gilda’s Club at GildasClub.org.
Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home: A Memoir
by Natalie Goldberg
A powerful memoir from Natalie Golderg--the woman who changed the way writing is taught in this country--sharing her experience with cancer grounded in her practice of writing and Zen.
A moving and clear-looking memoir on being in love with your life even when life brings illness, from longtime Zen practitioner and world-renowned writing teacher Natalie Goldberg.
When Natalie learns that she has CLL, a potentially fatal form of blood cancer, she is plunged into the world of hospitals, doctors, and medication. While trying to find a footing in this new and strange world, her partner, Yu-kwan, is also diagnosed with cancer. The cancer twins, as Natalie calls herself and Yu-kwan, must each navigate their own illness while somehow trying to stay in love and heal.
“When you go through extreme sickness, when everything you know and lived is tossed out the window and glass shatters . . . this too is part of life. Don’t give up. Pay attention. We have to make ourselves larger to include the inconceivable.”
Through a direct and grounded narrative, Natalie illuminates a path through illness: that we need to be in love with the life we have, to embrace the dark and the light in our life. For Natalie, writing and painting represent the light, and her cancer takes her deeper into her art practices. Balanced with a Zen practice that helps her to face death, this book is a moving meditation on living life in full bloom.
Living Out Loud: Sports, Cancer, and the Things Worth Fighting
by Craig Sager and Craig Sager II
Thanks to an eccentric wardrobe filled with brightly colored suits and a love of sports that knows no bounds, Craig Sager is one of the most beloved and recognizable broadcasters on television. So when the sports world learned that he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) there was an outpouring of love and support from everyone who was inspired by his colorful life and his fearless decision to continue doing the job he loved?despite being told that he would have only three-to-six months to live. Sager has undergone three stem cell transplants?with his son as the donor for two of them?and more than twenty chemotherapy cycles since his diagnosis.
In Living Out Loud, Craig Sager shares incredible stories from his remarkable career and chronicles his heroic battle. Whether he’s sprinting across Wrigley Field mid-game as a college student with cops in pursuit, chasing down Hank Aaron on the field for an interview after Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, running with the bulls in Pamplona, or hunkering down to face the daunting physical challenges of fighting leukemia, Craig Sager is always ready to defy expectations, embrace life, and live it to the fullest.
Including a foreword by Charles Barkley and with unique insight from his son Craig Sager II, this entertaining, honest, and introspective account of a life lived in sports reveals the enduring lessons Sager has learned throughout his career and reminds you that no matter what life throws at you, to always look at the bright side.
Milkshakes and Morphine
by Genevieve Fox
This is a singular memoir: an excavation of mother love, a candid account of the agonies, and absurdities, of the cancer experience, and a doggedly optimistic paean to life.
When Genevieve Fox finds a lump in her throat, she turns up for the hospital diagnosis in a party frock and fancy hair. I can’t have cancer, she thinks. I’ve done my hair. But there is another reason she can’t countenance cancer. Genevieve was orphaned to it at the age of nine.
Genevieve’s story weaves together past and present as she recalls her rackety, unconventional childhood, while also facing the spectre of being lost to her young boys. Yet, she confronts her treatment with the same sassy survival instinct that characterised her childhood misadventures. Through an extraordinary alchemy, Genevieve takes life’s precariousness and turns it on its head.
Overcome: A Story of Intervention, Rescue, and Redemption; Our Cancer Survivorship Journey
by Glen D. Kirkpatrick Jr. and Debbie K. Kirkpatrick
“An incredible story of repeated crushing news, events answered with despair then courage, perseverance, sacrifice, faith, hope, but mostly love.” Overcome illustrates the personal anguish of cancer diagnosis, treatments, and unexpected effects of treatments that can occur later in life – something not often talked or written about. The author also shows what family members and caregivers might experience during these challenges. Overcome demonstrates that living with chronic illness is a physical, psychological and spiritual battle. God showed Glen that concentrating on his identity in Christ was key (Romans 8:1) to his faith. Embracing his sonship (Romans 8:14-17) made all the difference in his spirit and daily life. Overcome beautifully captures the rollercoaster of emotions, the trials and challenges the Kirkpatrick’s faced, and the importance of faith that prevails above all else.
Pretty Sick: The Beauty Guide for Women with Cancer
by Caitlin M. Kiernan
The ultimate resource to looking your best during and after cancer treatment from a veteran beauty industry insider.
When beauty editor Caitlin Kiernan received the shattering diagnosis of cancer, she was obviously concerned about her health. But as a working professional, she knew she had to learn, quickly, how to look her best while feeling her worst. Caitlin called on her list of extensive contacts--from top medical doctors to hair stylists, makeup artists, and style mavens--to gather the best and most useful tips to offset the unpleasant effects of treatment. The result is this comprehensive beauty guide for women with cancer, covering every cosmetic issue, from skin care, to hair care, wig shopping, nail maintenance, makeup tricks, and much, much more. Illustrated with charming drawings by Jamie Lee Reardin and peppered with advice from celebrities and cancer survivors, Pretty Sick will be a welcome and trusted resource, helping women look and feel their best.
The Prostate Monologues: What Every Man Can Learn from My Humbling, Confusing, and Sometimes Comical Battle With Prostate Cancer
by Jack McCallum
Recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and approaching surgery, Jack McCallum wanted to tackle the confusion, misconceptions, and conflicting medical advice that so many men struggle with when thinking about the disease. So he got to work writing The Prostate Monologues.
Through the lens of his own experience, McCallum attacks the nitty-gritty questions about prostate cancer that men think about (but may be too bashful to ask their doctors) with honesty and humor. For example, “When is it safe to attempt intercourse, or at least, self-inflicted orgasm?” Or, if you have surgery, “What’s it like the first time you shop for adult diapers?” With wry humor, McCallum decodes the sometimes-confusing jargon of medical professionals so that it is understandable and relatable to “regular” men.
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men and the second most fatal. Worse than the obvious commonality and mortality of the disease, though, is the fact that prostate cancer can rob a man of his manhood. Accordingly, McCallum handles the subject not only with care and knowledge, but also with good cheer. Through the honest telling of his own story, and drawing on the latest research, McCallum shares insight into what’s worked for him—and what’s proven to work—in surviving cancer with your sense of humor intact.
Terminal Hope: What Cancer Taught Me About Living and Dying
by Sharon Eagle
How can anyone feel hopeful after learning she is fatally ill? Sharon Eagle seeks to answer that very question in Terminal Hope, which chronicles her experience with stage 4 lung cancer.
After receiving her diagnosis, Eagle, a longtime nurse and educator, understands immediately that her cancer will probably kill her. What she can’t foresee is the remarkable wisdom she gains from the spiritual and emotional quest that her diagnosis sparks. As she navigates the land of cancer, seeking new purpose and meaning, Eagle discovers that her illness has a great deal to teach her. Among many other lessons, cancer inspires her to examine her own faith journey, rebuild relationships, and reconsider patient-caregiver communication and support. Above all, she uncovers compelling evidence for her belief that death is not the end but rather merely a transition to something even better. A moving memoir about the power of positivity, gratitude, and faith, Terminal Hope offers a new perspective for people of all belief systems.
A Walk With Purpose: Memoir of a Bioentrepreneur
by Michael D. Becker
With a prolific career in biotechnology, serving as CEO of two companies who worked in the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, Michael Becker knew and understood cancer. It was his job. So, when he was looking in the mirror at age 47 and saw a lump in his neck that wasn’t there the day before, he knew something was wrong. After several tests and agonizing waiting periods for results, his worst fears were confirmed - he was diagnosed with stage IV oropharyngeal (head and neck) cancer in December 2015. While initial treatment appeared successful, his cancer returned in December 2016 and he was given about a year to live. What does someone do with a diagnosis like that? Everyone would react different. For Becker, he became determined to share his story of adversity and daily triumph, which is all chronicled in his new book, A Walk With Purpose: Memoir of a Bioentrepreneur. Part memoir, part fascinating look inside the biotechnology industry, A Walk With Purpose takes readers down his career path from an investment advisor to chief executive officer of an oncology-focused biotechnology company, to finally ending on the other end of the industry: a terminal cancer patient facing his own mortality. This fast-moving, fascinating and heart-wrenching memoir shows a personal account of all sides of the oncology biotech industry: from CEO to patient.
Why I Wore Lipstick: To My Mastectomy
by Geralyn Lucas
Having recently graduated from Columbia Journalism School and landed her dream job at 20/20, the last thing 27-year-old Geralyn expects to hear is a breast cancer diagnosis. And there is one part of the diagnosis that no one will discuss with her: what it means to be a young girl with cancer in a beauty-obsessed culture. Trying to find herself, while losing her vibrancy and her looks, Geralyn embarks on a road to self-acceptance that will inspire all women. Although her book is explicitly about a period of time where she was driven by fear and uncertainty about the future, Geralyn managed a transformation that will encourage all women under siege to discover their own courage and beauty.
The important and outrageous lessons of Why I Wore Lipstick come fast and furious with the same gusto that Geralyn has learned to bring to every moment of her life.
Worms On Parachutes: Mystical Allies In My Cancer Survival
by Sarah-Jane Phillips
This autobiography, with its quirky and up-beat title and enchanting naive illustration on the front cover, will certainly attract the most discerning reader whether they are travelling along the breast cancer journey or know of someone in that situation.
The author who is brave clearly displays how she has met adversity head on, not only once but twice in her short life time. Her courage, indomitable spirit and triumph over all that was “thrown” at her on her personal cancer journey, was due to positive thinking, loving family, friends and excellent medical care.
A short synopsis reveals Sarah-Jane as a 16 year old battling Hodgkins Disease with the help of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Overcoming that hurdle and getting “back on track with her life,” she embarks on a career, marries and has two small daughters. Then beyond her control, breast cancer gives her yet another challenge in her life.
Sarah-Jane writes and shares with the reader an easy to read account of her “journey,” all her feelings and experiences felt during her diagnosis, treatment and early years following treatment with warmth and honesty, humour and finally success, being able to resume her life with her loved ones, healthy and well. It never ceases to amaze me how courage and positive thinking can be given to us when we have HOPE.
