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Shopperworld - C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too...
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List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £5.99
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vermilion
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780091816650
ISBN: 0091816653
Label: Vermilion
Manufacturer: Vermilion
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 1999-04-08
Publisher: Vermilion
Studio: Vermilion
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: It's honest, but I'm glad that I didn't have it at the time
Comment: 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 years after my treatment (chemo + 7 weeks of radiotherapy) it is easier for me to read this: I recognize all of it. I'm glad that I didn't read this at the time: it would have made me more pessimistic. I would caution any one who has oral cancer who reads this: the side effects are there, but they don't necessarily last. The loss of taste, the absence of saliva and consequent dry mouth, the tightening of muscles and their locking, the possible speech impediment - these are all things that can disappear over time: they did in my case and my impression was that this is "pioneer territory".
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Compelling
Comment: 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 just one of millions and liable to be missed, which is a shame.
Much of the pleasure of the book, and it is a pleasure to read, despite the painfulness of the material, is in Diamond's uniquely funny and self deprecating voice, which is sorely missed now that he is gone.
This does not make for comfortable reading material, but it is good to see someone get angry and be human about their pain, rather than turning into Mother Theresa and insisting that everything is alright. Of course everything is not alright, and we feel time and again that Diamond has to literally pull himself up by his bootstraps to face what is to come, and we sense the anxiety and fear in him that things will not go right, and what will he do?
As ever, there are no right answers here. The only thing we can do is understand the individual and their need to cope with what comes in whatever way is appropriate to them. That he allowed us to share his feelings, for however brief a time is an honour, and of all the books of this kind this is one of the best, equalled only by Ruth Picardie's also groundbreaking and heartbreaking work, Before I Say Goodbye.
Customer Rating:
Summary: C: Cowards get cancer too
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A remarkably compelling read.
Comment: 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 for both its clarity and wit. But if there's one thing that strikes the reader throughout, it is the overwhelming passion for life. Even when things get tough - and they get pretty damn tough - Diamond manages to find something worth living for - whether it's the simple pleasures of being in one's own home and experiencing the smells of domestic life, or simply going to buy new clothes.
Don't be put off by the 'c' word. This is a minor masterpiece. A celebration of life - not the dwelling on death.
God bless you, John Diamond.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A brilliant,heartbreaking funny book.
Comment: This should be required reading for all medical students and nurses.I re read it when I was in hospital being treated for cancer and I found it a great companion.
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