When Breath Becomes Air#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both. |
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When Breath Becomes Air
User Review - Publishers WeeklyAuthor and physician Kalanithi had nearly completed his residency in neurosurgery at Stanford when he was diagnosed with Stage lV lung cancer at the age of 36. Despite the stubborn progression of his ... Read full review
WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR
User Review - KirkusA neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. Writing isn't brain surgery, but it's rare when someone adept at the ... Read full review
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asked attending became become began better blood body brain breath called cancer changed close coming death decision died discussed doctor don't Emma eyes face fact father feel felt finally friends future hands head hope hospital human keep knew later leave light live looked Lucy lung meaning medicine mind months moral mother nearly needed neurosurgery never night nurse Okay once operation pain patient Paul Paul's perhaps physical therapy possible question relationships residency responsibility rest returned scan seemed sense skin smiling spent standing Stanford started stepped stopped suffering sure surgeon surgery talk tell thing thought told trying tumor turned understand walked weeks weight write
Bibliographic information
| Title | When Breath Becomes Air |
| Author | Paul Kalanithi |
| Contributor | Abraham Verghese |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Random House Publishing Group, 2016 |
| ISBN | 081298840X, 9780812988406 |
| Length | 256 pages |
| Subjects | › Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs Philosophy / Mind & Body Social Science / Death & Dying |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |