An edition of When Breath Becomes Air (2016)

When Breath Becomes Air

printing (5)
  • 3.80 ·
  • 20 Ratings
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  • 24 Currently reading
  • 32 Have read
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  • 3.80 ·
  • 20 Ratings
  • 541 Want to read
  • 24 Currently reading
  • 32 Have read

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Last edited by ImportBot
December 20, 2023 | History
An edition of When Breath Becomes Air (2016)

When Breath Becomes Air

printing (5)
  • 3.80 ·
  • 20 Ratings
  • 541 Want to read
  • 24 Currently reading
  • 32 Have read

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.

--front flap

Publish Date
Publisher
Random House
Language
English
Pages
228

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Previews available in: English Spanish

Edition Availability
Cover of: When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air
2016, Random House
Hardcover in English
Cover of: When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air
2016, Random House
Hardcover in English - printing (5)
Cover of: El buen doctor
El buen doctor
2016-03, Océano
Paperback in Spanish - Primera edicion

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Book Details


Published in

New York

Edition Notes

Copyright Date
2016

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
616.99 / 424
Library of Congress
RC280.L8 K35 2016
lccn_permalink
https://lccn.loc.gov/2015023815

Contributors

Foreword
Abraham Verghese

The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover
Pagination
xix, 228 p. :
Number of pages
228

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL25934092M
ISBN 10
081298840X
ISBN 13
9780812988406
LCCN
2015023815
OCLC/WorldCat
974395454, 909925278
Paperback Swap
081298840X
Amazon ID (ASIN)
081298840X
Google
93faCwAAQBAJ
Goodreads
58594066

Work Description

When Breath Becomes Air is a non-fiction autobiographical book written by American neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi. It is a memoir about his life and illness, battling stage IV metastatic lung cancer. It was posthumously published by Random House on January 12, 2016.

Excerpts

I knew with certainty that I would never be a doctor.
added by Lisa. "first sentence"

Links outside Open Library

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
December 20, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
September 27, 2023 Edited by AgentSapphire reverted to revision 24
September 27, 2023 Edited by Ruslana Binko Update covers
March 7, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 19, 2016 Created by Claire Schmieder Added new book.