When Breath Becomes Air
Reviews
Beautifully written. While reading, I felt like I have a deep connection with the family. I was with them going through it all.
this book left me feeling hollow (in a good way)
very sad very very beautiful
This was an amazing book. I have felt everything from sorrow to joy. I do not think any other book has made me think this much. I do not have the words to correctly describe the feeling this book gives me. Truly a masterpiece.
When I finished the final page of this book, I felt both broken and full. That is what grief, in all of its complexities, feels like to me. I mourn for all the world has lost in losing this man. A friend of mine said it best: this book is a gift.
I'm sobbing.
I'm so glad to have read this
finished this the third time and i know, for sure, there will be a fourth, a fifth, a sixth time, and so many more of it.
“Bu kitap sayesinde, Paul Kalanithi’yi hiç tanımayanlar bile ölümünün yasını tutacak;hayat hikayesinden herkes faydalanacak.Hepinize,her birinize tavsiye ederim.”-Ann Patchett
This book is so raw and beautiful. It was a short book, but it was very remarkable. I deeply admire Paul for his unwavering passion. It was so well-written that it tugged my heartstrings.
i couldn't put it down. i finished reading it in a day in a half (granted it's not particularly long). it's...sad, i suppose, but it wasn't the kind of sad in which you sit there wanting to cry for five hours because of how it'd ended. it was the kind of sad that dwells quietly, the one that makes you think about your life, the people you love, the people that don't have much of either.
This heartbreaking memoir is powerful. My blog: http://worncorners.com/2016/03/22/whe...
** spoiler alert ** This is the first book that I finished - and actually enjoyed - this year, despite the content of the memoir. I heard bits of opinions about this book, but I never really paid attention because it didn't really sparked my interest. All it did was solidify a surface level opinion - wich was "Oh, it's a story about a doctor". Little did I know that I was gonna be shedding tears over this book at 10pm in my pajamas. For a memoir, this is considerably short. If I wasn't procrastinating, I think it would only take me 4 hours max to finish it. This book was straight to the point, while providing emotional substance to the storyline. This was written by Paul, and was later finished by his wife, Lucy, because sadly Paul passed away at the age of 36. I think this just hits too close to home, because I'm a medical student as well. And most of the diagnosis or anything medical related, I cold understand pretty quickly. It also made me realize how incredibly HARD it is to pursue neurosurgery, or any medical profession outside my 4 year course in nursing school. He relayed the picture of a neurosurgeon perfectly, even while battling his disease. It made my chest physically ache, to think how his life could've played out if he didn't get cancer. I am incredibly saddened to know how he never truly tapped his full potential with his residency, and his shortlived fatherhood to his now 8-year-old daughter. Idk. This book just made me realize how serious medical school is. How entering this field can alter the entirety of your life, the majority of your life. And I'm one of the people who made this joice, to enter this field and I wanna have the passion and grit that Paul once had. I wanna see the world through his perspective. I wanna have his drive to strive for something great each day. I always considered - in the back of my head - to pursue neuroscience. To be a neurosurgeon. But as I finished the book and saw how many things you have to sacrifice to be a neurosurgeon - it scared me. One of the few things I've picked up from the book is, you need to love medicine - your job, or else it's just isn't worth it. And I agree. I always looked at my career as something that I HAVE to do, but that will inevitably ruin me in the long run. And I don't know if I still have a strong will to recover after that. Who knows? Anyways, to sum this all up, When Breath Becomes Air made an impact in my life and probably the choices I'm gonna make in my medicine field life. You were great, Paul. Thank you for inspiring me.
my all time favorite
[ BOOK IG: @clumsyciel ] overall rating: 5/5 ⭐️ time taken to read: ~2 days number of sticky tabs: 20 "You can't ever reach perfection, but you believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving." (page 115) WBBA is a memoir by Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon that is diagnosed with lung cancer on his last year of residency. all of his dreams and plans for the future are shattered, and he learns how to live meaningfully while he is still on the road of acceptance for this new path in his life. first and foremost, i just need to announce that i cried a lot over this book. Dr. Kalanithi's writing is so mesmerising; all of his raw emotions are written eloquently across a page. perhaps that was a weird way of phrasing it, but that was how the book felt. in the foreword by Dr. Abraham Verghese, he describes Dr. Kalanithi's funeral as 'i saw faces looking calm, smiling, as if they had witnessed something profoundly beautiful' (page xx). i find this part in particular; incredibly beautiful. funerals, as sad as the occasion is, it is a celebration of how one lived. each and every life is meaningful, no matter what one has done during their time of living. everyone has been put here for a purpose. it so happens that Dr. Kalanithi has found his; to become a neurosurgeon to save people, a father to his daughter, and to inspire others through his writing. this book has made me realise that even through death, life is always worth living for.
I'm so glad that I persisted on reading this book. I cannot articulate my words right now as I am ugly crying. But, one thing is for sure, Paul achieved in publishing a book that enlightens and (will) help people in confronting death. A truly great book written by a great man.
I do not often cry during books or memoirs but this one got me. Read it in 24 hours. A really beautiful narrative of the dying and grieving process. Just loved it.
I’m fucking crying lol
Found this book while scrolling through my page-shelf from the recommendarion of another memoir.. and I might say, it is one of the quite-hard-to-understand book I read to so far. It is a book about Paul Kalanithi, a doctor who have been suffering for lung cancer. He is a brave and always striving for exellence for the rest of his life. While struggling with this disease, he was looking for the worth-meaning of life, with his surroundings, his family, and pour those by words to write this book. He was died while working in this book that make this story more emotional.. "I wish I lived longer so my children have more memories about me." This book has many unfamiliar words that probably need you to learn more vocabularies afterwards.. Or more likely, you need to pay attention of new phrases or related content about this book. Not forget to mention this book is quite.. short? But full of learning in the span of two hundreds pages memoir of someone's life. Something memorable about this book that I highlighted are; five stage of gried all backward, maybe life is merely an “instant,” too brief to consider, but he can merge the focus would have to be on my imminent role, intimately involved with the when and how of death—the grave digger inside it. When Breath Becomes Air is a book that you need for always striving, counting each every blessing of what mother earth give to you. This book won't tell you about what to do, but guiding you to several options to get through it. The entire human knowledge that came cross all the same never contained in one person, it grows from the relationship they collide between each other, yet, it will never complete. "The hand of the lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of it and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. It caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many dried in the open valley. son of man, can these bones live?"
Wow... that was a lot to take in. All I want to say is I respect and admire Paul so much for his bravery while facing death. An excellent book to welcome August.
okay stop. Cue. This book makes me cry in public. This book, completely overwhelm me, how I was alike Paul in sense of interests, loving literature but at the same time going on a science path, where it contradicts, and having the interest of being a neurosurgeon. How Paul had it all, I will undoubtly can't feel the same as him. I'd felt the real pessimism and the relentless depression over me, meanwhile Paul faced it with absolute positivity and having those certain period of time perceived as joyful times. "You can't ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving." Superb. This book has taught me a lot in which I can't put it in words well. 5 stars out of 5.
Memento mori
I don’t usually read non-fictional books, but this one was an exception. It holds a lot of meaning in between the pages. I like how Paul did not only define himself as a doctor, but was also a writer, entwining the science with art. Breathtakingly sad but a meaningful read.
A fantastically emotional book with a great amount of real world discussions. Life is fleeting, and Kalanithi was able to capture a change from breaking bad news to folks, to being on the receiving side. I shed some tears, yes and was able to understand and connect more about how difficult it is to be in the positions of doctors and nurses.
Highlights
Indeed, the version of Paul I miss most, more than ever robust, dazzling version with whom I first fell in love with, is the beautiful, focused man he was in his last year, the Paul who wrote this book—frail but never weak.
Lying next to Lucy in the hospital bed, both of us crying, the CT scan images still glowing on the computer screen, that identity as a physician—my identity—no longer mattered.
As a chief resident, nearly all responsibility fell on my shoulders, and the opportunities to succeed—or fail—were greater than ever. The pain of failure had led me to understand that technical excellence was a moral requirement. Good intentions were not enough, not when so much depended on my skills, when the difference between tragedy and triumph was defined by one or two millimeters.
“can you breathe okay with my head on your chest like this?” his answer was “it’s the only way i know how to breathe.”
knowing that even if i’m dying, until i actually die, i am still living.
you can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving
If the weight of mortality does not grow lighter, does it at least get more familiar?
Even if you are perfect, the world isn't.
There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.
Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.
At home in bed a few weeks before he died, I asked him, “Can you breathe okay with my head on your chest like this?” His answer was “It’s the only way I know how to breathe.”
At home in bed a few weeks before he died, I asked him, “Can you breathe okay with my head on your chest like this?” His answer was “It’s the only way I know how to breathe.”
“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
In the end, it cannot be doubted that each of us can see only a part of the picture. The doctor sees one, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl diver a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable guy a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth. Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete. And Truth comes somewhere above all of them, where, as at the end of that Sunday's reading, the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
Knowing that even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living
Cadaver dissection epitomizes, for man, the transformation of the somber, respectful student into the callous, arrogant doctor.
We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.
You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.
At home in bed a few weeks before he died, I asked him, “Can you breathe okay with my head on your chest like this?” His answer was “It’s the only way I know how to breathe.”
There we were, doctor and patient, in a relationship that sometimes Carrie’s a magisterial air and other times, like now, was no more, and no less, than two people huddled together, as one faces the abyss. Doctors, it turns out, need hope, too.
In the end, it cannot be doubted that each of us can see only a part of the picture. The doctor sees one, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl diver a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable guy a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth. Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.
Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but it’s power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue. Between these core passions and scientific theory, there will always be a gap. No system of thought can contain the fullness of human experience.
The way forward would seem obvious, if only I knew how many months or years I had left. Tell me three months, I’d spent time with family. Tell me one year, I’d write a book. Give me ten years, I’d get back to treating diseases. The truth that you live one day at a time didn’t help: What was I supposed to do with that day?