THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

You can get prostate cancer information on the internet. If you want some useful insight, consider reading books.

There are different kinds of prostate cancer books. First we have the encyclopedia, useful because it puts in one place everything you might want to know. And you can take it on the plane and to bed, places you rarely take your internet. As one great example of the prostate cancer encyclopedia I would cite the American Cancer Society’s Complete Guide to Prostate Cancer. In this book, written by medical experts, you can find basic definitions and learn about diagnosis and treatment. This kind of book will help you think of questions to ask.

There is a different kind of prostate cancer book that you should consider: biography. This type of book is newer than encyclopedias because men’s reluctance to talk about prostate cancer began to erode only a few yeas ago. This newer prostate cancer book probably got a major boost from the beautifully composed and very entertaining Man to Man: Surviving Prostate Cancer, an autobiography by Michael Korda, formerly editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster. While it was published ten years ago, its prose feels fresh and highly relevant today too. If you’ve been dealing with surgeons and you want to commiserate in private, you’ll do well with Man to Man .

The Lay of the Land represents the newest type of prostate cancer book: fiction. It was written by Pulitzer winning author Richard Ford and it tells of a 55-year old divorced realtor coping with strained relationships, doctors with lousy bedside manner, and prostate radiation. In its depiction of private thoughts and emotion, this modern American novel goes where real biography may never go. The details seem so authentic that I could not help but wonder how Mr. Ford knows so much about prostate cancer.

You can gain a lot of information by reading web sites and medical encyclopedias. You can gain a lot of insight by reading biography.