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When Breath Becomes Air
- Author
- Paul Kalanithi
- Narrator
- Sunil Malhotra, Lucy Kalanithi
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 10 March 2016
- Run Time
- 5 hours 29 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Memoirs, Autobiography: science, technology and medicine, Coping with / advice about death and bereavement, Coping with / advice about cancer, Neurosciences
- Rating
- 4.6 (5 reviews)
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
THE NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
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.
'Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option...Unmissable' New York Times
© Paul Kalanithi 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2016
Critics Review
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A vital book about dying. Awe-inspiring and exquisite. Obligatory reading for the living.
Nigella Lawson
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Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.
Atul Gawande, author of BEING MORTAL
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Powerful and poignant.
The Sunday Times
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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
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A stark, fascinating, well-written and heroic memoir.
The Times
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Exceptional.
Evening Standard
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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 RED
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A meditation on what makes a life worth living.
Guardian
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A powerful and compelling read.
The Economist, Book of the Year
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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
User Reviews
Book 4.6
Narration 4.0
-
5.0 3.0
Loved the book, and enjoyed the majority of the narration, but I didn’t like the way all the female characters were voiced with such a high pitch and meek, passive tone. The epilogue - in a real female voice - was narrated much better.
L_McDonnell 2025-05-22
Details
- Author
- Paul Kalanithi
- Narrator
- Sunil Malhotra, Lucy Kalanithi
- Duration
- 5 hours 29 minutes
- Release Date
- 10 March 2016
- ISBN
- 9781473546523
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Memoirs, Autobiography: science, technology and medicine, Coping with / advice about death and bereavement, Coping with / advice about cancer, Neurosciences
- Rating
- 4.6(5 reviews)
- Narration
- 4.0(5 reviews)
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin. THE NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLERAt 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.'Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option...Unmissable' New York Times© Paul Kalanithi 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2016
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