The extraordinary story of the Nazi-era scientific genius who discovered how cancer cells eat―and what it means for how we should.

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg―a cousin of the famous finance Warburgs―was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the twentieth century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.

Praise for Ravenous

A fascinating account of an impossibly arrogant scientific genius, his collision with the monster Adolph Hitler, and the revolutions in cancer research. Sam Apple, a lively stylist, handles these complex, braided narrative threads with clarity, insight, and a nose for the paradoxical and absurd. The result is a genuine contribution to science writing and a model for how to do contemporary nonfiction.

Phillip Lopate, Professor of Writing, Columbia University; editor of The Glorious American Essay

Otto Warburg's decades-old science is central to a revolution in thinking about cancer as a metabolic disease. Sam Apple's riveting book, Ravenous, reveals Warburg in all his brilliant, bizarre complexity and is a must-read for anyone interested in the science behind low-carbohydrate/high-fat and ketogenic eating.

Gary Taubes, science journalist, author of The Case Against Sugar

Sam Apple is a spellbinding storyteller and explainer of science. Ravenous will change the way you think about cancer and how to prevent it. Thought provoking and captivating. I highly recommend it.

Jason Fung, MD, author of The Cancer Code

Sam Apple’s Ravenous is biography at its best. Otto Warburg is an uncommonly good subject—a cell biologist who could not stand his fellow humans but devoted himself to saving them from the scourge of cancer. The author’s understanding of Warburg’s life and scientific legacy is perceptive and subtle, his biology lessons are a joy to read, and his history of the connections between Hitler and Germany’s early cancer research is a small masterpiece.

**Patricia O’Toole, author of The Five of Hearts, When Trumpets Call, and The Moralist.**

A gripping and smart page-turner, Sam Apple’s Ravenous tells two fascinating interwoven stories: that of the pioneer of cancer metabolism research Otto Warburg who in the 21st century finally has been proven right. And that of Hitler’s fear of cancer, both as the disease that had killed his mother and as a political metaphor. Even though the association of Jews with deadly disease forms the heart of Hitler’s eliminationist anti-Semitism, his fear of cancer was so great that he exempted both his mother’s Jewish doctor and Otto Warburg from persecution.