#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 … 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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Beautifully written, tragic that his medical skills, great heart for helping his patients and love for his family were lost too soon. I have read this several times!
Realistic assessment of a difficult topic.
A must read for all! This books gives a wonderful perceptive on the end of life and how the quality of life should be a primary concern. Medical personnel should read this.
I have a sister who is battling cancer, so I thought I would read this book to see if I could glean some insight into what she might be going through. It points out the need for support–family, friends, and the medical community. I don’t know if my sister is going to survive her cancer. At least I will have an idea of what to expect if she doesn’t make it.
A must read about a physician who dies from a terminal illness at the end of his neurosurgery residency.
This book was unfortunately rushed to a near finish due to the author’s rapidly approaching death. It’s incompletion prevents it from being a great literary read but the story remains a heart wrenching, inspirational one. Had he had the time I would have hoped he could have spent more time on the dehumanizing aspects of the training for the profession he chose. The sanctioned torture he endured would go a long way toward explaining some of his experiences at the hands of other care givers. I hope his daughter can one day appreciate the unique stock from which she is sprung.
True story of a physician’s look at his own terminal illness. Very sad story but also inspirational.
Compelling exploration of the issues of life, death, and what makes life worth living.
The book is very well written, since it was written by a highly educated doctor. I found it confounding that such a smart man could let this happen.
I couldn’t put this book down! Inspirational while heart breaking, it made me look at life a little differently, in an inspiring way. Very courageous family!
Hauntingly beautiful, a treatise on the purpose of life and the meaning of our deaths. Written as poetry given to prose, it is a delight and an honor to share this mans life. A book I will never forget and that will inform the way I see the world for all my days to come.
A beautifully brutally honest book about how it is to truly face death. It does not leave one empty but more at peace with what we all must face.
Beautiful written!
This is not a genre I read but a friend suggested I read it. Heart wrenching story from the voice of Paul who chronicles his battle with cancer. But it’s more than that. It’s a story of his dreams and hopes and weaknesses and strengths. I did enjoy it especially his intelligent reasoning of God. Still was hard to read for me but I strongly suggest it.
So sad and powerful.
Although this book has lots to do with death, it has so much more to do with living.
Wonderful writer. A must read.
When a physician of 37 writes a book about how to face death at the age of 37 and makes it clear that you need to live each day you are given, you need to pay attention. As a neurosurgeon he also has written about the truth of recovery from traumatic brain injuries as well as the path a terminal cancer patient takes.
Paul Kalanithi wrote a book that is really hard to put down. He was a gifted writer as well as a gifted surgeon. The reader knows from page 1 that he died before the book was published. There are so many ways the book causes the reader to really ponder both life choices, living life fully as well as death, and dying on one’s own terms. His words are almost poetic as he draws us in to his life and how his choices changed due to his diagnosis. He caused me to ask myself hard questions. I LOVED it.
True, tragic story of facing horror and knowing far too initimately what is going to happen.
Well written, sincere, heartfelt.
As sad as the ending is, this is a wonderful book and I recommend enthusiastically.