When Breath Becomes Air

November 2, 2015
Author and physician Kalanithi had nearly completed his residency in neurosurgery at Stanford when he was diagnosed with Stage lV lung cancer at the age of 36. Despite the stubborn progression of his disease, Kalanithi was able to write, work, and delve into a number of profound issues before the end of his life, documented here (his wife provides the epilogue). As a youth in Arizona, Kalanithi was unsure whether he wanted to pursue medicine, as his father did, or if literature and writing were his calling. This inspiring memoir makes it clear that he excelled at both. Kalanithi shares his career struggles, bringing readers into his studies at Yale (including cadaver dissection), the relentless demands of neurosurgery, and the life-and-death decisions and medical puzzles that must be solved. After he begins cancer treatment, Kalanithi strives to define his dual role as physician and patient, and he weighs in on such topics as what makes life meaningful and how one determines what is most important when little time is left. He also shares the challenges of colleagues: an oncologist who walks a tightrope between hope and honest reality; a fellow doctor who commits suicide after losing a patient; Kalanithi’s wife, also a doctor, bearing witness to her husband’s decline even as she gives birth to their child. This deeply moving memoir reveals how much can be achieved through service and gratitude when a life is courageously and resiliently lived.

Starred review from October 15, 2015
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. Writing isn't brain surgery, but it's rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn't enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. "But I couldn't let go of the question," he writes, after realizing that his goals "didn't quite fit in an English department." "Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?" So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which "would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay." The author's empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose--as well as the moral purpose underscoring it--suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. "The fact of death is unsettling," he understates. "Yet there is no other way to live." A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.

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November 15, 2015
Can life remain full and rewarding even while one is living under a death sentence? This is the question now-deceased neurosurgeon Kalanithi asked himself after receiving a late-stage lung cancer diagnosis. Newly married and almost ready to complete his residency, at 34 Kalanithi was faced with a momentous decision: Should he continue with a promising medical career, or fall back on his first love of writing while taking care of his health? Fortunately for the readers of this moving memoir, he decided to do both. Kalanithi describes his life-changing decision to set aside the pursuit of a doctorate in literature in favor of attending medical school and then recounts the discovery and progress of his illness, along with the inevitable upheaval in his personal life. A precious highlight here is the heartrending epilogue penned by his wife, Lucy, following Kalanithi's passing shortly after she became pregnant. This eloquent, heartfelt meditation on the choices that make life worth living, even as death looms, will prompt readers to contemplate their own values and mortality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

April 25, 2016
Malhotra is a youthful actor who embodies the thoughtful, genial yet inquisitive and energetic mien that Kalanithi exhibits in his life and in his book. Malhotra seems to mature, like Kalanithi, from an exuberant college student seeking the meaning of life and death in literature, philosophy and science to a studious and ambitious medical student to a devoted and exhausted intern and resident. At the age of 36, already recognized as an eminent brain surgeon, Kalanithi suddenly finds himself on the other side of the bed—as a stage-four lung cancer patient. The shock and confusion—the struggle first to conquer the disease, then simply to survive, then to accept his imminent death—is the day-to-day reality Kalanithi and his wife face with the wise medical and personal counsel of his oncologist. In his last year he condenses all his experience as student, doctor, patient, husband, and father into this contemplative, profoundly moving and beautifully written memoir. After his death, Kalanithi’s wife, Lucy, completes the book with her own words of anguish and love. Audiobook veteran Campbell reads her section in a soft, sure voice that may bring the listener to tears. A Random hardcover.