@@Book@@ When Breath Becomes Air *PDF*
When Breath Becomes Air
By : by Paul Kalanithi
ratings : 341,246
ratings reviews : 28,838
reviews
Original Title : When Breath Becomes Air
ISBN : B00XSSYR50
Edition Language : English
Series : Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Biography or Autobiography (2017), Wellcome Book Prize Nominee (2017), Goodreads Choice Award for Memoir & Autobiography (2016), Waterstones Book of the Year Nominee (2016), Book of the Month Book of the Year Award Nominee (2016) ...more Jan Michalski Prize Nominee for Longlist (2017) ...less
Kindle Edition, 208 pages
Published January 19th 2016 by Random House (first published January 12th 2016)
Characters :
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Description : For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?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 For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?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.
Literary Awards : Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Biography or Autobiography (2017), Wellcome Book Prize Nominee (2017), Goodreads Choice Award for Memoir & Autobiography (2016), Waterstones Book of the Year Nominee (2016), Book of the Month Book of the Year Award Nominee (2016) ...more Jan Michalski Prize Nominee for Longlist (2017) ...less
REVIEWS :I finished the book. I'm glad that I perservered with it. It's quite an odd book and an overall rating might be the sum of the parts, but is not going to reflect the writing or content of those parts. Ratings, part I, 1 star, part II, 3 stars and part III, 5 stars.The first part, the foreword, by Abraham Verghese, was verbose, hagiographic and contradictory (view spoiler)[ie. full of shit (hide spoiler)]. He said he didn't know the author at all until after his death. Then he says well he did As I finished this book with tears running down my face I asked myself, "Why did you read this book? You know it was going to be sad, how could a man dying of lung cancer before the age of forty be anything but." Yet to just classify this memoir, to classify this novel as such is to devalue the man he was. He was a lover of literature, a neurosurgeon, a scientist, a son and brother, a husband and father. He tried to live each day to the best of his ability, he helped many and he acknowledged the A gasping, desperate, powerful little book, bigger on the inside than outside. It's a little bit about dying, but more about being alive. Oh dear. I was always told not to speak ill of the dead. It feels awful to give a three star rating to a nice guy (by all accounts) who is now dead. But I simply did not find this book compelling or insightful enough. It is mildly interesting to learn about neurosurgery as a specialty and to read the author's thoughts as he faced diagnosis, illness and then death. I always felt that the author was holding back; that it was too clinical, too calm, just not passionate enough. The first time I felt I could not have written a more accurate review. I rated it more or less the same and for precisely the same reason. I only felt truly moved by his wife's epilogue I don't think you should read this book because the story of an incredibly gifted man who had his life taken away at such a young age might give you the motivation to live life more fully. I think you should read this book because that talented, inspiring man has incredibly important things to say derived from his own experiences, and it's important to listen and learn from them. Read this book with the knowledge that you might not always be able to understand everything someone goes through, Do yourself a favour and don't listened to the ending of this book while doing your makeup...Theres no way to review a book where the author died too young from cancer leaving his wife and 8 months old baby behind without feeling like an asshole for not giving it 5 stars.That’s why more often than not, I don’t give a rating to the autobiographies I read. I just don’t feel comfortable rating someone’s life.Cancer and the death of a close one is something most of us unfortunately can relate to and Sharing this interesting New York Times interview with Dr. Lucy Kalanithi.She sounds like a very special person too:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/hea...***********************************************Upgrading this to 5 stars, not sure why I didn't before***********************************************After finishing this profound, emotional memoir I feel like I lost a good friend.Thank you Paul Kalanithi for this beautiful gift you left for us, wherever you are... Paul Kalanithi & Baby 1/12/16: Update: Just wanted to mention that this book goes on sale today. Its an amazing story!Paul Kalanithi studied literature at Stanford University. For his thesis, he studied the work of Walt Whitman, a poet , who a century before, was possessed by the same questions that haunted him. Kalanithi wanted to find a way to understand and describe what he termed "the Physiological-Spiritual Man." Kalanithi had a passion for literature. He began to see language as an almost supernatural force, I read this almost two months ago and realized I never reviewed it. When I finished the book, I just couldn't review it. It's a small book, but it's powerful. I didn't shed any tears at the end of it, but I remember sitting there physically shaking and feeling really numb and tingly. A book has never impacted me that way before, and I'm not even sure why I read the book in the first place since I knew what I was getting myself into. Wait, I know why I wanted to read it. It was very therapeutic Okay, I so wanted to like this very absorbing book more than I did. I am not going to recap it other than to say that Paul came from a privileged background, a very supportive family and an Indian (Asian Tiger) mom. He succumbed to an aggressive form of lung cancer. My own wife died of lung disease (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis). Outside of the hospital I was her caregiver for a year and a half. I was the one who made sure she had oxygen, got to her appointments, watched this once vital woman Never has a book turned me into a sad sobbing mess so quickly. Philosophical, beautiful, moving, difficult, heartbreaking. Highly, HIGHLY recommend. alternative title: "How the upper class dies"Autobiographical book by a guy who's trained and studied all his life, nearly became a writer, then chose to become a doctor instead (that's what happens when you come from a family of medical doctors), and is diagnosed with cancer at the end of his training. Torschlusspanik [1] sets in and he has to write that one book he always wanted to write. It's partially an autobiography of his training, a hymn to his wife, and a bit on patient-doctor.
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