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When Breath Becomes Air
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
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Summary
Tackling the agonizing transition from skilled surgeon to bewildered patient, When Breath Becomes Air is an unflinching account of what it means to be betrayed by the body you devoted your life to understanding.
The New York Times number-one best seller.
At the age of 36, 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 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.
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- HN786
- 08-03-20
this book is about ambition not death
This book was supposed to be about death and whilst in the obvious sense it was, it was more about fulfilling life’s ambitions. I feel bad to write a bad review but the writing was mediocre, the story was nothing special and it was ultimately less about death and confronting it and rather more about writing to fulfil a dying man’s lifelong ambition to be a published writer. I didn’t like the strong American ambition; of working the body down to a pulp that this book describes persistently and then packaged it up as if it is a thing to be admired. This is not the way to live life. Indeed one of Paul’s friends Geoff commits suicide from the pressures of the medical profession. I hated how Paul’s oncologist encouraged him to go back to gruelling brain surgeries despite the fact that his body was buckling under the pressure and he no doubt became more ill because of the burden of his professional work. I admired Paul’s striving for excellence before his cancer diagnosis but after that the story takes a turn that I did not approve of. Reading (or rather listening to) this was incredibly depressing, it did not inspire any hope of a life after death. For more inspiring literary works on this topic, I would recommend readers obtain the rather more shorter beauty (barely 70 pages), A Grief Observed, written by C S Lewis. I believe this is the text that his wife Lucy even cited from at the end in her epilogue. There is a far greater wealth of literature on death that is more inspiring than this book. Throughout this book the writing teetered on the spectrum between sounding too clinical or trying too hard to sound poetic with descriptions about the moonlight or some other such descriptive that added no value or weight to the words being expressed. There was a disconnect and lack of tangible human vulnerability. I didn’t *feel* his ordeal through the language he used to express himself. I highly doubt that he didn’t have those emotions within him which is why I felt disappointed by the book and all that it was supposed to represent. If the book had had less hype attached to it perhaps I would not have been so disappointed. But this was a mediocre book and not one that I would recommend when there’s far better literature on death. If I were a neurologist perhaps I’d take keener interest in reading his medical publications but Paul’s writing style leaves a reader like me with much to be desired.
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24 people found this helpful
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- Vivian
- 27-09-16
Lovely insight into a doctor becoming a patient
I think I cried through most of this book. It is very thought provoking as a doctor, as a surgeon, to rethink what makes me a doctor and what would I be if I am no longer a doctor.
It also describe from a doctor's point of view how it feels like to become a patient.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Angie
- 25-03-16
Deeply touching & a story of bravery
Initially when I chose this book on audio version, I didn't know what to expect.
This book took me through love, strength as a person, couple, family, integrity of the patient but also of Lucy who stood by him relentlessly through each day.
Rest in peace, people like you are rare.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Nash Hon
- 02-10-16
Powerful book
Very rarely, a book comes along that makes you pause and think about what you're doing with your life and what you want to do with it.
This is one of them and it's one of the best. Painful yet absolutely inspiring.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Diana W.
- 04-01-17
An inspirational book
An account both deeply personal and universally resonant, of living life, and seeking meaning, in the face of death. The memoirs of a man dying at 35, Paul Kalanithi reflects on his early love of literature combined with his discovery of science, and his intuition that both are essential in understanding the meaning of human existence. Later training as a doctor and practice as a neurosurgeon drew him to engage deeply with questions of meaning in the lives, suffering and deaths of his patients and their families, until, with a diagnosis of terminal cancer, he was forced to confront these existential questions most powerfully, painfully and profoundly, in his own life. A moving and inspiring book. Very well narrated.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Swan
- 07-05-16
Fear hope and love
Moving in 'real time' this book shares the intimacy of terminal illness without drama or pathos.
A superb account of a personal experience that captures fear, hope and love.
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4 people found this helpful
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- C
- 19-11-16
My book of the year
I would recommend this book to anyone who is
A) thinking of joining the medical profession
B) currently deals with patients in any professional capacity.
C) is currently or has been a patient
This book truly is a gift and a reminder of our shared humanity. Thank you to Paul & his family for writing about and sharing their very personal experiences and to the buyers at Audible/ Amazon for making it available in this format. My life is the richer for it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jack Wright
- 14-02-19
That, that was something else.
A very special book that is more than the culmination of its words on a page.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Colm O' Leary
- 01-11-18
Beautiful, poignant and meaningful
I listened in one sitting. Really moving and emotive. I cried and smiled like a baby
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 28-07-18
This guy was on a different wave length to me. Worth a read.
Author was a deep thinker. It was sad but interesting to hear his take on suffering & grief & loss. It was scary though to have revealed how little care he took of his body when he was younger. There was no credence given to a healthy, well balanced life style. That is something I see in so many left brain, Medico types. He & his oncologist & wife seemed to value toxic therapies whose side effects some of which ( not all) seemed worse than the progressing cancer”s effects. He seemed to value extension of life over quality; although he did make clear in the book that as long as he was not cognitively impaired & could be a deep thinker, that for him personally his life held meaning. It was for me like a clear dis-announcing of the body. No recognition of what a wise & profound thing nature had evolved in creating the body. No honouring of its basic needs. No credence given to its potential to self heal given an optimum,self healing environment, nourishment & rest. It was as if his body was his enemy to be fought against with science as his weapon. I did gain insights reading this personal story of tragedy, but not the ones I was expecting or hoping for. He sounded like a beautiful soul - but I feel somewhere in life he lost his sense of connectedness to the profundity of nature, to nurturing instead of battling. In his deep philosophising he never uttered recognition of nurturing himself versus pushing himself. He was a brave, noble warrior. Worth a read.
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2 people found this helpful