Here are 100 books that Cancer Wars fans have personally recommended if you like
Cancer Wars.
Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I used to think of television as a third parent. As a child of immigrants, I learned a lot about being an American from the media. Soon, I realized there were limits to what I could learn because media and tech privilege profit over community. For 20 years, I have studied what happens when people decide to make media outside of corporations. I have interviewed hundreds of filmmakers, written hundreds of blogs and articles, curated festivals, juried awards, and ultimately founded my own platform, all resulting in four books. My greatest teachers have been artists, healers, and family—chosen and by blood—who have created spaces for honesty, vulnerability, and creative conflict.
This book helped me release shame after a colleague of mine told me my work wasn’t “science.”
Here’s the truth: to create a healing platform, I needed to tap into ways of thinking that academia sees as “woo woo” and “savage.” I looked to the stars. I meditated. I did rituals and read myths.
Dr. Kimmerer, trained as a traditional botanist, realized that the Indigenous myths and stories she was told as a child contained scientific knowledge passed down for generations by her tribe.
She realized there were scientific truths her community knew for millennia that traditional scientists only discovered within the last 100 years. This is the power of Ancestral Intelligence, disregarded by the same science that ultimately created AI.
What stories, fables, and myths have taught you valuable lessons about the world?
Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take "us on a journey that is…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
In my various professional roles, I help people prepare for a world that does not yet exist. I often talk with students, scholars, politicians, industry leaders, community advocates, and others about how emerging, digital technology changes the world. And yet, technology doesn’t come from nowhere—we make it! And use it! And misuse it! We also sometimes forget that something as simple as fire can be understood as technology or that our imaginations and care for others are the most important technology. The books on this list encourage us to explore building a world that serves all of us—not just some of us.
This book is unlike anything I’d ever read, but I desperately needed it. As the title suggests, the book flows with deep wisdom from within oceans. As a long-time resident of a landlocked state, I’ve always approached large bodies of water with a sense of awe (and, quite honestly, fear).
This creative nonfiction tells the story of possibility, kinship, and collective kindness available in the depths. The book itself is a technology for living well with others and ourselves.
Undrowned is a book-length meditation for social movements and our whole species based on the subversive and transformative guidance of marine mammals. Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean. Gumbs employs a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility and naturalist observation to show what they might teach us, producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning. From the relationship between the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Gumbs’s Shinnecock and enslaved ancestors to…
I am a professor of visual studies from Canada who has always been interested in dream life—although I’ll admit, it took me a long time to treat this domain as a serious research topic (sometimes the somberness of the academy can impede more adventurous pursuits). I created the Museum of Dreams as a place to explore the social and political significance of these visions, which has led to amazing collaborations with institutions, communities, and individuals around the world. I hope this list has inspired you to attend more closely to your own dreams!
This book was my survival guide for facing a serious illness.
I learned so much from the way this self- described “Black lesbian feminist mother lover poet” remade herself in the process of recovering from cancer. Lorde is a prophet of radical transformation. And one of her key tools was her dreams.
She taught us that change comes from looking inward and by giving voice to what one finds there. And the book contains one of the most amazing dreams I’ve ever read: near the end of her life, Lorde dreamt she wanted to take a course in “language crazure”: the study of “the formation and crack and composure of words.”
Moving between journal entry, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the personal and political as she reflects on her experience coping with breast cancer and a radical mastectomy.
A Penguin Classic
First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and mastectomy. Long before narratives explored the silences around illness and women's pain, Lorde questioned the rules of conformity for women's body images and supported the need to confront physical loss not hidden by prosthesis. Living as a "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," Lorde heals and re-envisions herself…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I’ve been passionate about animals, the environment, and social justice since I was a child. As an adult I have been frustrated—even enraged—that so many products and practices are considered safe and “normal” even though they harm wildlife, pets, and people. I think it's bizarre that people imagine themselves as separate from the chemicals they spray in their homes and their yards, even as they breathe in the toxins. I hope that the concept of “transcorporeality,” which urges us to see our own bodies as literally part of the environment, will convince people that environmentalism isn’t optional but is a vital part of human health and social justice.
Suzanne Antonetta’s Body Toxic epitomizes what I call the “material memoir,” a mode of writing autobiography that seeks to understand the self through connections to places and substances. Antonetta bravely examines her own physical and mental health, grappling with scientific data: “I choked facts and they choked me back, they stuck like Legos—clingy but hard to build into anything real.” Recalling the nuclear warhead that caught fire nearby her childhood home, spraying radioactive particles, she notes that her entire family, bizarrely, has somehow forgotten this incident. Body Toxic is fascinating, chilling, and unnerving, but also beautifully written in unflinching yet poetic prose. Body Toxic convinced me that our life stories are incomplete if they ignore how places and substances have affected us.
A thought-provoking and dramatic account two families who hope to start a new life in the boglands of New Jersey only to discover, much too late, that their new living environment was riddled with radiation and toxic waste.
Two immigrant families drawn together from wildly different parts of the world, Italy on one side and Barbados on the other, pursued their vision of the American dream by building a summer escape in the boglands of New Jersey, where the rural and industrial collide. They picked gooseberries on hot afternoons and spent lazy days rowing dinghies down creeks. But the gooseberry…
Unleash Your God-Given Healing is the book I never wanted to write. As an educator and trained researcher, I uncovered some of the reasons I got a cancer I had no risk factors or genetics for. I also discovered what I could do to help my doctors to beat my cancer and prevent a recurrence. After surgeries and then chemo and immunotherapy for a year, my cancer was gone. My doctors called me their “Rock Star” cancer patient and attributed my lifestyle changes as to why I fared well and returned quickly to vibrant health. I realized that what I learned could help many people. The treasures I learned are in this book.
This book was one of the first books I read when researching what I could do to help my doctors to beat my cancer. Dr. Quillin is one of the top experts in beating cancer with nutrition both for the patient undergoing treatments and for the patient using holistic methods. This book gives valuable information and insight into how diet can both prevent and heal cancer. Powerful.
Cancer has escalated from a once obscure disease to a leading cause of death worldwide. Chemo, radiation, and surgery can reduce tumor burden but do nothing to change the underlying causes of cancer. Enter the need for this book. Using evidence-based guidelines, this book gives you a simple diet and supplement program to augment your doctor's best care while undergoing cancer treatment. This book shows the reader how nutrition can augment immune functions, make chemo and radiation more of a selective toxin against the cancer but not the patient, reverse or prevent the common malnutrition, starve the sugar feeding cancer,…
I'm a long-time journalist, wife, mother, and grandmother, who was diagnosed with GYN cancer at the beginning of the Covid pandemic in the spring of 2020. My usual subjects are the arts and trauma, but since I’m now one of the more than 600,000 American women with GYN cancer, I decided to write this report about my year of treatment.
This is a scholarly memoir by a co-author of The Madwoman in the Attic, the feminist literary classic, and a professor of English and women’s studies at Indiana University. She was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2008, then a virtual death sentence. Gubar describes several stages of treatment including "debulking" and chemotherapy and the importance of a loving support system. The writing is sober, well-documented, comprehensive, and, though published ten years ago, all too relevant.
Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body's betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer with various forms of cancer.
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…
I was 32 when diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As a clinician, and now cancer survivor, I’ve become increasingly focused on empowering cancer patients through and beyond remission. Nearly two decades of clinical practice have taught me that an informed and committed patient makes better decisions about their care, harmoniously interfaces with their healthcare team, and stays focused on living a healthy lifestyle. I’ve read countless books about cancer, but this list outlines the essentials that I recommend to patients beginning their healing journey.
Many holistic cancer treatments exist, but how do you separate hype from effective, evidence-based therapies? Authored by two seasoned naturopathic oncologists, Outside the Box Cancer Therapies is a meticulously referenced guidebook to what’s working right now in integrative oncology. Many forward-thinking cancer clinics are employing naturopathic oncologists and are consistently getting better outcomes combining therapies, such as intravenous vitamin C, alongside conventional oncology protocols. This book will give you the confidence and the research to best communicate options with your healthcare team.
'[A] calm exposition of the latest research and not a rejection of mainstream treatment.' - Cygnus Review
With approximately 40 percent of men and women in the United States being diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime, very few of us escape having cancer touch our lives in some way - whether it is our own life or that of a loved one. Scientific research continues to prove the benefits of nutritional and holistic therapies, yet, for the most part, these approaches to treatment still remain unexplored by the conventional medical establishment. With integrative and holistic healing…
I’m a YA writer who likes to tackle difficult subject matter. My books cover things like euthanasia, drug abuse, coming out, and accessing sex as someone with a disability. If my books are found by even just one person who needs to see themselves in a story, then I feel like my job is done.
This book deals with two different experiences of being a cancer survivor which is not something I've seen in a book before.I liked the way the book explored the idea of visible and invisible disabilities and how people view them differently. It's not a subject I've seen covered often in YA books and it's something so many people deal with every day. Jase was a jerk through a lot of the book, but I felt like this behavior was realistic given his past and his desire not to be seen through the cancer lens. His growth through the book was the most significant and it was gratifying to see the way his friendship with Mari changed his perspective on the world and his place in it.
Jase Ellison doesnt remember having acute lymphocytic leukemia when he was three years old. His cancer diagnosis only enters his mind twice a year. Once at his yearly checkup at the oncology clinic and one when he attends Camp Chemo in the summer. No one in his real life knows about his past, especially his friends at Atlanta West Prep. Mari Manos has never been able to hide her cancer survivorship. She wakes every morning, grabs her pink forearm clip crutches, and starts her day. Mari loves Camp Chemowhere shes developed a healthy crush on fellow camper Jase. At Camp,…
As a child, I was always drawn to stories told through both words and illustrations. Why should that have to end in adulthood? Spoiler: it doesn’t, because there are SO many incredible graphic memoirs and novels written with adult audiences in mind. As a graphic memoirist myself, I love to see how other artists explore the form. I share recommendations in this genre every month in my newsletter, Haley Wrote This.
It wasn’t until this book that I encountered such a sweet, heartbreaking, and colorful retelling of grief. This book has become my blueprint for how to both navigate my own experiences with loss and care for friends in grieving; Feder so perfectly lays out what’s helpful and what’s not.
I also appreciate how the illustrations preserve the beauty of Feder’s connection to her mom (in which I saw a lot of similarities to my own mother-daughter relationship!). I gave this book to my friend, who is a school counselor, to keep in their office for students going through grief, too.
This acclaimed graphic memoir that Kirkus calls “cathartic and uplifting” is the tale of losing a parent and what it feels like to grieve and to move forward.
“I can’t recommend this kind, funny, and poignant memoir enough. It’s an intimate, life-affirming story of resilience that feels like a good friend.” —Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet?
Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that…
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
I love travelogues and wrote a dual POV travel memoir with my husband. Travel writing allows us to see the world through others’ eyes, and my favorites are by those who used travel as a way to escape or heal. I’m more invested when I know this person not just wants, but needsthis journey. I understand this feeling. I empathize with them, I root for them, and I am happy for them when they reach their destination. I adoreEat, Pray, Loveand Wild, and want to recommend five other memoirs that have stayed with me as examples of brave people who left home behind in search of something better.
Recently widowed and diagnosed with cancer, Norma the nonagenarian skipped the chemo and hit the road with her son and daughter-in-law, who penned this account of taking Norma across the USA in an RV.
Formerly seen as a quiet wife and mother, her travels restored the adventurous, fearless woman she had been in her younger days. She reminded me that loss and fear can be part of your life, but don’t have to define it. That life is about more moments, not more minutes. And that it is never too late to have an adventure. Miss Norma is not just an inspiration for who I want to be when I’m 90, Miss Norma is an inspiration for who I want to be right now.
When Miss Norma was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she was advised to undergo surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. But instead of confining herself to a hospital bed for what could be her last stay, Norma-newly widowed after nearly seven decades of marriage-rose to her full height of five feet and told her doctor, "I'm ninety years old. I'm hitting the road." Packing what she needed, Norma took off on an unforgettable cross-country journey with three professional nomads-her retired son Tim, his wife Ramie, and their Standard Poodle Ringo-in a thirty-six-foot RV. Driving Miss Norma is the charming, infectiously joyous chronicle of…
