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Editorial 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
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
It's honest, but I'm glad that I didn't have it at the time I must admit that I usually don't read books about cancer. Having received this book yesterday it is difficult to put down. However, when I was going through the same illness - I actually had cancer on both sides of my throat,which is rare and I have since understood through the body language of my doctors doesn't usually bode well for survival - I made a point of not reading books about cancer. In the same way, I avoided the last chapters of those handy little leaflets that one finds in cancer wards. 4.5... more info
Compelling This book is apparently now required reading for oncologists and their ilk who have to deal with cancer patients and their relatives on a daily basis. This is a good thing, as so often, people in these tragic situations get ground up and spat out by the system, rather than helped by it.
Diamond was one of the first people to write about his condition and the situations in which he found himself. Now there are a plethora of books out there, all worthy in their own way, but which perhaps make this book... more info
C: Cowards get cancer too It is not an exagerration, it is impossible to put this book down. I read it within two evenings. The knowledge, the insight, the wit and honesty that John Diamond writes with is unparalleled for a book of this genre.
A remarkably compelling read. Being a reasonably squeamish individual, I am not in the habbit of picking up books devoted to any kind of illness - let alone cancer. But then I was drawn to the strangely chirpy cover of this book not by its title but by the name John Diamond. I was familiar with his writing long before his cancer columns in The Times. And it is testament to his terrific prose and probing insights that I managed to read this book in no more than a few days. His definition of cancer at the begining of the book is memorable... more info
