I am a voracious reader, and at the end of the year I often share with my friends the books I have enjoyed (I will spare you the immense amount of mindless trash I read on airplanes). This isn't exactly a "books of the year" list, as the books I have read are not all current, just new to me. But I thought I would share some that I have enjoyed with you, in no particular order.

1. The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddartha Mukherjee. Subtitled"A Biography of Cancer," this is a physician's take on the history of our attempts to understand, treat, and control the disease. It is a lively and entertaining book, made more so by the fact that I have known several of the book's subjects. My only real objection is that Dr. Mukherjee doesn't appear to be an ASCO member--will someone at the Columbia University Medical Center please tell him to cough up some of his book royalties on an ASCO membership? We could use his lively intelligence.

2. Memory of Fire, by Eduardo Galeano. Not one book, but a trilogy devoted to a history of the Americas. While North America figures in this, Galeano is primarily interested in the tragic nature of Central and South American history. Organized as a series of short-take historical vignettes, it can be read and put down without losing the track of the story. Fascinating and heartbreaking.

3. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution, by Richard Pipes. Pipes is one of our greatest modern historians. This book isn't new, and "concise" is not the same thing as "brief," but this is an outstanding look at a pivotal event in 20th century history.

4 and 5. Where Good Ideas Come From, by Steven Johnson, and The Gifts of Athena, by Joel Mokyr. I have always been fascinated by the subject of innovation, and these two books provide current and historical insights into the nature of progress.

6. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz. I wrote a blog earlier this year on this book, which explains why we should embrace our intellectual failures.

7. The Invisible Gorilla, by Christopher Chabris and Dan Simons, was also the subject of a blog earlier this year and discusses the fascinating subject of inattentional blindness, our ability to miss the obvious when our over-focus is elsewhere.

8. Green Metropolis, by David Owen. A counterintuitive look at our environmental woes that has made me re-think many of my beliefs about how to reverse, or at least delay, our impending environmental catastrophe.

9. Columbine, by David Cullen. Yes, that Columbine. An immensely sad but wonderfully written book by a first-rate reporter.

10. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simpson. I haven't read a whole lot of fiction that would make my list this year, but this delightful English country novel kept me smiling from start to finish.

11. Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann. This book won last year's National Book Award, though being cheap, I waited until the paperback version came out this year. An incredibly good novel about New York City set in 1974, Dickensian in it's ability to describe a diverse set of interacting New Yorkers. I suspect it will be read 50 years from now, if people are still reading.

12. Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst. One of a series of historical suspense novels set in the World War II era. They are all good, but this year's book by this author is a fine place to start.

I could go on, but twelve books is probably enough, and I have found that my eclectic tastes are not shared by all. Do me a favor and respond to this blog with your favorites for the year, so that we can create our own little ASCO book club.

Finally, a word on technology. I am writing this on my iPad, to which I am completely addicted. You can download both the wonderful Apple book app and the Amazon Kindle app for the iPad. I still love paper books, but having downloaded War and Peace (which I last read in college) for free through the Kindle app, I regularly read it on the plane trips to and from ASCO headquarters. I am lugging around fewer books as a result.