When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
This exquisite memoir by a young neurosurgeon diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer is at once haunting, heartbreaking, and inspiring. On the most prosaic level it offers a fascinating glimpse of the life of a dedicated professional who describes his sometimes crushing devotion to the craft of medicine a “calling.” But it is also a meditation on life that is full of courage and grace. Kalanithi’s early death is not just a loss to the medical profession and to potential patients who might have benefited from his counsel, but to literature—he had planned to spend his post-retirement years writing books, and this not-quite-finished memoir, penned in his 30s while he was in the final days of his life, shows that he had the talent to sit on the shelves beside other celebrated doctors turned writers, including Abraham Verghese, who penned the introduction to this book.
