The cover of this book is extremely confusing. The book focuses on cancer in the medical sense, but the cover includes a crab, associated with ''cancer' as an astrological sign.

<blockquote>The term "cancer" is commonly used to describe a variety of diseases that share certain features such as uncontrolled cell proliferation. During the last several decades numerous researchers have tried to reveal the causes of cancer through the study of mutations and their impact on phenotypes. The main underlying idea has been that mutations, either caused by accident or by environmental factors, are responsible for the uncontrolled proliferation of cells in which they occur.</blockquote>

Robin Hesketh PhD is Emeritus faculty in the biochemistry department of the University of Cambridge who has published research on cancer-related biomedical topics. In <i>Understanding Cancer</i>, Hesketh delivers a concise primer on cancer, touching on the history of cancer and its epidemiology, busting up common myths, and exploring what it means when scientists say that "cancer is a genetic disease." The work covers all the basics and hammers home that cancer is a somewhat inevitable externality of being a complex organism; somatic mutations accumulate over time and eventually provoke uncontrolled proliferation of cells. Hesketh's epistemic humility and overall balanced approach on certain controversial topics in cancer benefits the work as well.

<i>Understanding Cancer</i> is well organized, but it can feel more like reading a detailed outline than a book sometimes. On the plus side, there is a lot of information that is delivered clearly and succinctly. As someone with background in the field, I would have enjoyed more detailed explorations of certain topics, including more description of seminal discoveries/experiments, more commentary on the latest -omic approaches in precision oncology, and a deeper exploration of targeted and immuno- therapeutics. The final portion of the work delves into these compelling topics to some extent but undersells them. The book would also benefit from a more robust bibliography for readers interested in pursuing deeper knowledge.

I think this a good book for a young biomedical students interested in getting a broad understanding of cancer quickly or to general interest readers curious about cancer. However, there are lengthier and more compelling alternatives that can serve the same functions, such as Siddhartha Mukherjee's <i>The Emperor of All Maladies</i> and </i>The Gene</i>.

Understanding Cancer by Robin Hesketh starts out fairly simple, but does get considerably deeper into molecular biology than I was expecting. Parts of it went over my head, but it was still a very useful read. It seems to me that the target reader would be someone who already has a fairly good handle on biology and wants to know specifically about the biology of cancer. The researchers highlighted are overwhelmingly male.

Thank you to Cambridge University Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to access this free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.