When Breath Becomes Air

A vital book about dying. Awe-inspiring and exquisite. Obligatory reading for the living. – Nigella LawsonRattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful. – Atul Gawande, author of BEING MORTALPowerful and poignant. * The Sunday Times *Extraordinary…Remarkable… luminous, revelatory memoir about mortality and what makes being alive meaningful … Lyrical, intimate, insistent and profound. Kalanithi had the mind of the polymath and the ear of a poet. * Daily Telegraph *A stark, fascinating, well-written and heroic memoir. – Stefanie Marsh * The Times *Exceptional. – Katie Law * Evening Standard *When I came to the end of the last flawless paragraph of When Breath Becomes Air, all I could do was turn to the first page and read the whole thing again. Searingly intelligent, beautifully written, and beyond brave, I haven’t been so marked by a book in years. – Gabriel Weston, author of DIRECT REDA meditation on what makes a life worth living. * Guardian *A powerful and compelling read. * The Economist, Book of the Year *

Dr Kalanithi describes, clearly and simply, and entirely without self-pity, his journey from innocent medical student to professionally detached and all-powerful neurosurgeon to helpless patient, dying from cancer. He learns lessons about the reality of illness and the doctor-patient relationship that most doctors only learn in old age but Paul Kalanithi died at the tragically early age of 37.Every doctor should read this book - written by a member of our own tribe, it helps us understand and overcome the barriers we all erect between ourselves and our patients as soon as we are out of medical school

Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon and writer. He held degrees in English literature, human biology, and history and philosophy of science and medicine from Stanford and Cambridge universities before graduating from Yale School of Medicine. He also received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research. His reflections on doctoring and illness have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Paris Review Daily. Kalanithi died in March 2015, aged 37. He is survived by his wife, Lucy, and their daughter, Elizabeth Acadia.

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