C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too

Diamond, John

4.23

549 ratings by Goodreads

9781856867351: C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too

ISBN 10: 1856867358 ISBN 13: 9781856867351

Publisher: Random House Audiobooks, 2001

Shortly before his 44th birthday, the late John Diamond received the news that a lump he'd been assured was a benign cyst was, in fact, cancerous. This is a witty but compelling story of one man's view of his cancer and its treatment.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Once upon a time, being "unwell" meant a columnist was, how shall we put it, indisposed. Now, being truly unwell is no excuse for not filing your copy, and the resulting column is in danger of becoming something of a genre. If so, then here is its best exponent. John Diamond was just a common-or-garden Times columnist, a "sometime smoking, unexercised and overweight man of fortyish", and, being an expert hypochondriac, expectantly waiting for his first heart attack. Until 27 March 1997. Then he was diagnosed as having cancer. C is his "attempt to write the book I was looking for the night I got the bad news." C is a blow-by-blow account of the progress of his cancer and its various treatments, interlaced with forays into the daunting medical literature, autobiographical reminiscences, and meditative reflections on what this all means. As a guide to cancer, Diamond is usefully knowledgeable, able to cut through the medical profession's defensive euphemisms and tell us what's really going on. As a guide to himself, Diamond is unstintingly honest, so we get the whole man with all his personal strengths and foibles, and it's actually difficult to read the prognosis with which he leaves us. And to produce that degree of engagement is an achievement for any writer. --Alan Stewart

Book Description:

The witty but compelling story of one man's view of his cancer and its treatment which became an instant bestseller on its publication.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.