When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi 
Blurb:At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity – the brain – and finally into a patient and a new father. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when when life is catastrophically interrupted? What does it mean to have a child as your own life fades away? Paul Kalanithi died while working on this profoundly moving book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all. When Breath Becomes Air is a life-affirming reflection on facing our mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.This was a very interesting book. When you read the blurb the first thing that probably comes to mind is that this is going to be a sad book and it is in part... There's nothing happy about a young man dying of cancer, however, Paul tells his story in a rather detached tone and although it was, of course, sad, it was his wife's part at the back which really made me tear up and was, I thought, the best part of the book, although none of it was bad and it was a solid 4 star read for me. I can understand why he sounds this way, it must be amazingly hard to write about your own death, but I just felt like there were parts of the story that needed to be told and weren't. Maybe they were too painful to write down, however, you do also have to take into consideration that Paul died before seeing his work published, in fact, he died without fully finishing it, therefore, even if he'd wanted to do the edits and re-writes that other authors do, he never got the change... Despite that, I really enjoyed this book - if enjoyed is the right word? It is so much more than the tale of a dying man, it is also a tale of finding out what's really important to you. Also, it's interesting to learn about Paul's journey to becoming a neurosurgeon when he originally wanted to become a writer, and about the life of a doctor in his field. The writing was simple and there are lines which are beautifully poetic.
My favourite quotes from 'When Breath Becomes Air':'What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?' 'When there's no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon's only tool.' '... in taking up another cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight.' 'How little do doctors understand the hell through which we put patients.' 'The secret is to know that the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgement will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patients.' 'My carefully planned and hard-won future no longer existed.' 'If we're the best at this, that means it doesn't get any better than this.' '... even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living.' 'What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.''It never occurred to me that you could love someone the same way after he was gone...'
Blurb:At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity – the brain – and finally into a patient and a new father. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when when life is catastrophically interrupted? What does it mean to have a child as your own life fades away? Paul Kalanithi died while working on this profoundly moving book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all. When Breath Becomes Air is a life-affirming reflection on facing our mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.This was a very interesting book. When you read the blurb the first thing that probably comes to mind is that this is going to be a sad book and it is in part... There's nothing happy about a young man dying of cancer, however, Paul tells his story in a rather detached tone and although it was, of course, sad, it was his wife's part at the back which really made me tear up and was, I thought, the best part of the book, although none of it was bad and it was a solid 4 star read for me. I can understand why he sounds this way, it must be amazingly hard to write about your own death, but I just felt like there were parts of the story that needed to be told and weren't. Maybe they were too painful to write down, however, you do also have to take into consideration that Paul died before seeing his work published, in fact, he died without fully finishing it, therefore, even if he'd wanted to do the edits and re-writes that other authors do, he never got the change... Despite that, I really enjoyed this book - if enjoyed is the right word? It is so much more than the tale of a dying man, it is also a tale of finding out what's really important to you. Also, it's interesting to learn about Paul's journey to becoming a neurosurgeon when he originally wanted to become a writer, and about the life of a doctor in his field. The writing was simple and there are lines which are beautifully poetic.My favourite quotes from 'When Breath Becomes Air':'What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?' 'When there's no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon's only tool.' '... in taking up another cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight.' 'How little do doctors understand the hell through which we put patients.' 'The secret is to know that the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgement will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patients.' 'My carefully planned and hard-won future no longer existed.' 'If we're the best at this, that means it doesn't get any better than this.' '... even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living.' 'What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.''It never occurred to me that you could love someone the same way after he was gone...'
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