I saw a subreddit post that mentioned this book and I thought I just have to share this amazing book with everybody else. This book is truly inspirational and beyond amazing (I don't know how else I can praise this book). How Dr. Kalanithi writes with such grace and honesty really blew me away. Not only that, his story of his journey to become a neurosurgeon, as a current neurosurgeon, and as a father and husband really took my breath away. Tbh I really didn't think much about it when I first started because I'm not interested in becoming one; however, his story reminded me of why I have decided to pursue a career as a physician. He is truly a mentor. tmi: I finished it while working at the hospital and I was crying literally mucus coming out of my nose crying. That's how good it is. I could really go on about how great this book is but you get the point:)
Dr Paul Kalanithi wrote When Breath Becomes Air during the last months of his life, as he was succumbing to lung cancer. This is Dr Kalanithi's attempt to come to terms with his mortality, and to leave the world one final keepsake.
A hematologist speaking on my favorite medical podcast, The Curbsiders, described this book as one of the most important books that a budding hematologist-oncologist should read (the other book she mentioned was The Emperor of All Maladies). I have no plans to take up hema-onco, but I took her advice anyway. I'm glad I did.
Reading about Dr Kalanithi's youth transported me to my own carefree years pre-med, when summers meant hiking with friends, all of us heady thinking of a future that knew no limits. Reading about Kalanithi's experiences in residency reminded me of my own medical residency, with all of its ups and downs. This book is like reading a memoir written by someone I know. If Kalanithi were my friend, I might have found him to be occasionally abrasive (he was obviously highly intelligent and proud of it), but I think we might have gotten along just fine.
But I don't have Kalanithi's experience of dying, especially so soon. As far as I can tell, Kalanithi died happy, in the presence of his wife, newborn daughter, and family. But the last pages of this book gives me the sense that Kalanithi still had much to say, and much to live for, and that he didn't quite come to terms with his life being cut short.
Maybe that's the nature of death and dying. We never really come to terms with it.
Somehow I felt as if I was along with the author through his journey. The book was simple but I felt it was very powerful. The author has dealt with the concept of death or rather his own certain death was thought provoking. There was nothing sensational yet I was deeply touched. This book is one of those books that opened my eyes to some aspects of life and reminds of some very important things in life and how we can search for our own meaning in life.
Hello everyone! I am Mary and I am new to this community. I am a book worm and I love reading. English is not my native language so excuse me if I won't have the perfect spotless grammar all the time. I would love to share my favourite books here.
My last favourite book... . I was utterly impressed with this one. *When breath becomes air written by Paul Kalanithi will make you wonder about life's meaning. Paul no longer lives now. He died of cancer in 2015. After studying many years to become a neurosurgeon, fate struck him with these unbearable news: you have cancer. These words make anyone pray for life. I can see fear, hope, courage, regret, love and despair in Paul's book.
He has written the story of his life with such a sincerity that it is impossible not to be moved by these pages. He decided with his wife Lucy to have a baby before starting cancer treatment. A brave decision! Paul is no longer here, but he is present in everyone reading this book. His confession touches you, lingers and stays with you long after you finished reading. A stunning book ! You might shed some tears after reading, I definetely did. I wonder why do we get to appreciate life more when we have death stare us in the face...
I have been feeling low on motivation lately because of the pandemic and various other reasons akin to a person in general so I started reading self help books starting with The Subtle Art, Feeling good by David Burns and lastly, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi which is a memoir of Paul Kalanithi, who was a neurologist and a writer. That book has shook me to my very core. It just tears you apart in it's shattering yet beautiful way. Paul who himself struggles with lung cancer after being on the other side of the fence all his life. He keeps playing the role of a doctor and a patient and both at places.The entire book is about how he finds meaning in death while living. Throughout his life he strives to search meaning and this book is a culmination of that journey.It's a tiny book yet it etches your heart. Paul himself was a literature fanatic which reflects on each word he writes and those metaphors that cut you through your heart and soul and touch surfaces in the face of which everything else seems trivial. It is no doubt highly engaging and there were moments when I had to stop reading to just keep my composure and not break out at places. It was like someone made a beverage out of this book and I accidentally drank it and now it's a part of my body and my life. It is motivating and hopeless at the same time. It all comes down to writing in which terms, Paul is highly equipped because the story just hits you and makes you question your reality and your values. I wish I could quote some of the most beautiful lines form this book time to time at lunch or dinner parties or get togethers. I actually can. Lol. If anyone is borderline depressed or even otherwise would definitely recommend this beauty.
As we are wrapping up our first book club for the month of August, we are getting set up for our next book. The suggestion as When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi. (If you have suggestions for future book clubs, please let me know! I'd be happy to let whomever dive in for the month of October as the point person!)
About the Book
At the age of 36, on the verge of a completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi's health began to falter. He started losing weight and was wracked by waves of excruciating back pain. A CT scan confirmed what Paul, deep down, had suspected: he had stage four lung cancer, widely disseminated. One day, he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined, the culmination of decades of striving, evaporated. With incredible literary quality, philosophical acuity, and medical authority, When Breath Becomes Air approaches the questions raised by facing mortality from the dual perspective of the neurosurgeon who spent a decade meeting patients in the twilight between life and death, and the terminally ill patient who suddenly found himself living in that liminality. At the base of Paul's inquiry are essential questions, such as: What makes life worth living in the face of death? What happens when the future, instead of being a ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present? When faced with a terminal diagnosis, what does it mean to have a child, to nuture a new life as another one fades away? As Paul wrote, "Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn't really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live." Paul Kalanithi passed away in March 2015, while working on this book.
Dates
September 20 - Part I
September 30 - Part II
We will use this thread as our Book Club 2 space. It will serve as the catch-all for this book club trial run! Meaning, we will confirm interest and participation here, as well as hold our discussions. My goal is to keep the /r/DeathPositive community tidy while also engaging those who want to be part of this book club.
Confirm that you're in for this round, and we'll all meet back u
... keep reading on reddit ➡If you work in the medical field or are deeply imbedded within the medical community (patient or family/friend of a patient), how have these books influenced you?
It isn’t a memoir. It’s his brain on a page. And there is something so beautiful about a neurosurgeon-neuroscientist mapping out his brain on a page.
You that seek what life is in death Now find it air that once was breath.
when breath becomes air by Paul Kalanithi is a stunning piece of literature. Even after knowing how this book ends it didn’t curb the shock and pain I felt. It’s more painful to see pages that capture his death after having known his thoughts and fears so intimately. Venturing into the nonfiction category in precious summers is something that I’ve rarely done but this beautiful book and Paul Kalanithi’s amazing writing is just so captivating.
On multiple occasions I was blinking back tears and also realising what I loved and missed so deeply about reading, the simple feeling of having felt something so deeply. 5/5
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/05/27/paul-kalanithi-why-gave-up-on-atheism.html
If I'm not mistaken, his argument is that without god life is meaningless; therefore god exists. This is a logical fallacy. Whether or not a deity exists has no bearing on whether or not your life has meaning. I'm tired of the narrative that non-believers' lives are empty and meaningless. I could not care less about the fact that after I'm dead, the universe will forget that I ever existed. My life has the meaning that I assign to it. I live my life as I please with the understanding that one day my adventure will end and I'm okay with that.
Shoutout to my 4th year peeps with time for leisurely reading & videogames! For those who haven't heard of this book - Paul is a 30+ year old husband/writer/neurosurgical resident at Stanford nearing completion of over 10 years of medical school and neurosurgical residency when he finds out that he is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.
The way he describes it: "One chapter of my life seemed to have ended; perhaps the whole book was closing. Instead of being the pastoral figure aiding a life transition, I found myself the sheep, lost and confused. Severe illness wasn't life-altering, it was life-shattering. It felt less like an epiphany - a piercing burst of light, illuminating What Really Matters - and more like someone had just firebombed the path forward. Now I would have to work around it."
I thought it was an inspiring read, not only because you hear about his unique path into medicine (he had an extensive literary background, which shows in his style of writing) but also because of how passionate he is about his work (he describes neurosurgery as a 'calling' and not a job). He describes all of his experiences - from first year of medical school in anatomy lab to life as a resident - and how he had always been wrestling to find meaning in his work. It's written in a very analytical but personal matter and I think when he starts describing his final months, weeks & days, it gives you a raw, bare-boned and gritty experience of death and dying. He talks about the "hell that we put our patients through" and it's so surreal to think about your experience as doctor to patient. The epilogue is a section written by his wife and let me just say that there were several points in the book where I had sorta fought off any tears, but once I got to this section the waterworks were on full display...But anyways, this book is for anyone and everyone, in the medical field or not. Check it out if you haven't read it before. Also, I'd love to hear your guys' must-reads, so please do share!
I started this book today, and finished it in one sitting. I don't think I ever read a book in one day before. Just couldn't put this book down. I feel like I learned a great lesson on death and fragility of human life, but most of all, what it means to live. It was truly a beautiful book. What book taught you a meaningful lesson that you carry in your life everyday?
So just finished When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and can honestly say that is the most meaningful, poignant and intimate book I have ever read.
Kalanithi's writing is both honestly raw and by the end of finishing I was desperately trying to hold back the tears (I highly recommend you don't read this book in the lunch break out room of your workplace). As a 22 year old death is not something that has crossed my mind frequently but this book made be come to terms with it, just by reading Kalanithi's perspective on how to deal with mortality and moving from someone who deals with death on a day to day basis and then moving to a more personal experience of knowing your days are limited.
Every chapter has a thought or phrase that really sticks with you and its one of few books where I have written them down to remind myself of the message they convey. I understand the fear that my Father is going through as he gets older and it's made me feel more connected to people, just via the thought that we are all going to die one day... but that it is okay. Death can be dignified and whilst it is unfair in most cases, it is a significant part of life and we should not be afraid of it.
Reading his book, I came to think of Kalanithi as a friend. Someone who opened and shared his innermost thoughts, feeling and emotions. No matter how dark or uplifiting they are. This book has almost certainly changed my life, giving me peace about one uncertainty of life that we all have.
I would highly recommend to anyone who is look for a deep, intimate read that is both thought provoking and peaceful.
I note see Mormonism as all too often self serving. We help someone move in our move out. We call that service. And perhaps it is to that person family. We are told to serve in the temple more and more it set up for a ward party or clean up a ward party. We call that service and maybe it is. Are any of these really serving society are we even coming out of our shell. Have we ventured out of our bubbles.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
From GoodReads:
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.
I don't have very much to say about this book.This book has 4.36/5 start on GoodReads and I have no clue why. I didn't like it. It was overly prosaic and philosophical in a way that felt like the author was trying just too damned hard to come across as clever. The best part of the book in my opinion was the afterward written by the author's wife which is very short, the rest of the book was not good.
I don’t even know where to begin. After finishing this book, I was a crying mess. I have never thought in a million years a book can break me down and make me cried so much. As someone who have 0 ideas about the medical field or anything in that matter, this book educated me so much about what doctors must go through when dealing with patients. It brings out the human in all of us. I’m still shaking as I’m typing this. I highly recommend this book to everyone as it definitely gave me a whole new perspective about life and death itself.
Hey everyone! I am posting the thread to open up our discussion on Book Club text When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi. I leveraged Penguin Random House's guide for some starter questions; however, conversations do not need to stem from here!
Please use this thread as you are reading the text and finishing it in these next few weeks!
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How did you come away feeling, after reading this book? Upset? Inspired? Anxious? Less afraid?
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How do you think the years Paul spent, tending to patients and training to be a neurosurgeon, affected the outlook he had on his own illness? When Paul wrote that the question he asked himself was not “why me,” but “why not me,” how did that strike you? Could you relate to it?
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Were there passages or sentences that struck you as particularly profound or moving?
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Given that Paul died before the book was finished, what are some of the questions you would have wanted to ask him if he were still here today?
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Paul was determined to face death with integrity, and through his book, demystify it for people. Do you think he succeeded?
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Is this a book you will continue thinking about, now that you are done? Do you find it having an impact on the way you go about your days?
