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Powell's Staff: New Literature in Translation: December 2022 and January 2023 (0 comment)
It may be a new year, this may be a list of new books, but our love for literature in translation hasn’t changed at all, and we are so pleased to be enthusiastically recommending these recent releases. On this list, you’ll find a Spanish novel where controversy swirls around a Coca-Cola billboard...
Read More»
  • Kelsey Ford: From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence (0 comment)
  • Kelsey Ford: Five Book Friday: Year of the Rabbit (1 comment)

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When Breath Becomes Air

by Paul Kalanithi
When Breath Becomes Air

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ISBN13: 9780812988406
ISBN10: 081298840X



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Staff Pick

A heartbreaking and exceptionally moving memoir by a young surgeon wrestling with the questions met when confronting death, and reflecting on what makes life worth living. An inspiration to us all, Kalanithi’s eloquent and thought-provoking self-examination is unforgettable. I’m grateful for the chance to have read it. Recommended By Michal D., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

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.

Review

“This eloquent, heartfelt meditation on the choices that make live worth living, even as death looms, will prompt readers to contemplate their own values and mortality.” Booklist

Review

“Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Review

“Inspiring . . . This deeply moving memoir reveals how much can be achieved through service and gratitude when a life is courageously and resiliently lived.” Publishers Weekly

Review

“Those of us who never met Paul Kalanithi will both mourn his death and benefit from his life. This is one of a handful of books I consider to be a universal donor—I would recommend it to anyone, everyone.” Ann Patchett

Review

“Rattling, heartbreaking, and ultimately beautiful, the too-young Dr. Kalanithi’s memoir is proof that the dying are the ones who have the most to teach us about life.” Atul Gawande

About the Author

Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon and writer. He grew up in Kingman, Arizona, and graduated from Stanford University with a BA and MA in English literature and a BA in human biology. He earned an MPhil in history and philosophy of science and medicine from the University of Cambridge and graduated cum laude from the Yale School of Medicine, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society. He returned to Stanford to complete his residency training in neurological surgery and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience, during which he received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research. He died in March 2015. He is survived by his large, loving family, including his wife, Lucy, and their daughter, Elizabeth Acadia.

5 3

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 5 (3 comments)

`
lily , March 15, 2018
Absolutely excellent. I haven't finished many books in tears but this was exceptionally moving. Heart-breaking, honest and powerful!

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`
writermala , April 22, 2016 (view all comments by writermala)
Any time a life is nipped in the bud it is sad. Sadder still is it when the nipped life is that of a doctor - a neurosurgeon no less. Paul Kalanithi tells of his cancer diagnosis and battle - of his change from doctor to patient and who better to tell this story than he? He after all has a Master's in literature in addition to being a doctor. He was always fascinated by life and death and ultimately he comes to terms with death through his own death. Kalanithi understands much and conveys much as in : "The doctor sees one part of the picture, the patient another, the engineer a third....the pastor a tenth. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete." As his wife says in the epilogue the entire book is a race against time. We the readers can only rejoice in that he took the time to record his struggle and his feelings as he battled for his life. Even in death his life has been meaningful.

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`
SeattleBookMama , December 31, 2015 (view all comments by SeattleBookMama)
Paul Kalaniithi was a promising young physician who had nearly finished completing ten years of training as a neurosurgeon when he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. His twin ambitions had been to become a neurosurgeon and to write. When he realized how little time was left of his too-brief life, he decided to spend his remaining time writing this book. Thank you, Net Galley and Random House for the DRC. Dr. Kalanithi died in March 2015, but he left this luminous memoir behind as part of his legacy. It is available to the public January 12, 2016. Eloquent and powerful,this memoir should rank high along with the work of Mitch Albom and Randy Pausch as a story that helps us learn to let go. Because as Kalanithi points out, death will come for each of us. It always wins; the only question is when. Recommended to those dealing with loss, and to those ready for a sensitive, hyperliterate memoir.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780812988406
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
01/12/2016
Publisher:
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
Pages:
256
Height:
1.10IN
Width:
5.40IN
Author:
Paul Kalanithi
Foreword:
Abraham Verghese

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