Ravenous

“While millions of other Europeans with Jewish heritage were being rounded up and sent to their deaths, Otto Warburg enjoyed Nazi protection and a comfortable life in Berlin. Sam Apple, author of a new book, Ravenous, explores his remarkable tale of survival.” – BBC History Revealed“The research that Warburg is best known for today, and the work that forms the backbone of Ravenous, is his discovery that cancer cells behave differently from healthy cells in two very specific ways: They consume massive amounts of glucose — Apple compares them to ravenous shipwrecked sailors — and they eschew aerobic respiration in favor of fermentation… Apple covers everything from Hitler’s obsessive preoccupation with cancer to how the German Empire’s transformation into an industrial powerhouse led to a Romanticism-fueled movement that emphasized both environmental and racial purity. The fact that Apple can make these stories… feel so immediate is a testament to his canny knack for choosing apposite details.” – Seth Mnookin - The New York Times“Ravenous tells the story of an extraordinary life, and of the visionary work that sustained it… Apple has a gift for elegant analogies and illuminating similes… [An] exceptionally interesting and well-written book…” – Thomas Morris - Times Literary Supplement“Eye-opening… filled with… outrageous and entertaining stories… I walked away from Ravenous thinking of Otto Warburg as a sort of Sigmund Freud of cancer research.” – Sam Kean - The Wall Street Journal

Sam Apple has written for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, the Atlantic, and NewYorker.com. He is on the faculty of the MA in Science Writing and MA in Writing programs at Johns Hopkins.