When Breath Becomes Air

By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword

Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell

Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?

NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage

Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir

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.

©2016 Paul Kalanithi (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Narrator Sunil Malhotra is faithful to the straightforward tone of Paul Kalanithi's memoir.... Cassandra Campbell narrates the epilogue by Kalanithi's wife, recounting his final moments in a smooth, empathetic voice that is certain to bring tears. When Breath Becomes Air may be unsentimental, but it is profoundly affecting." (AudioFile)

“I guarantee that finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option.... Part of this book’s tremendous impact comes from the obvious fact that its author was such a brilliant polymath. And part comes from the way he conveys what happened to him - passionately working and striving, deferring gratification, waiting to live, learning to die - so well. None of it is maudlin. Nothing is exaggerated. As he wrote to a friend: ‘It’s just tragic enough and just imaginable enough.’ And just important enough to be unmissable.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)

“Paul Kalanithi’s memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, written as he faced a terminal cancer diagnosis, is inherently sad. But it’s an emotional investment well worth making: a moving and thoughtful memoir of family, medicine and literature. It is, despite its grim undertone, accidentally inspiring.” (The Washington Post)

“Devastating and spectacular... [Kalanithi] is so likeable, so relatable, and so humble, that you become immersed in his world and forget where it’s all heading.” (USA Today)

Amazing

you get lost in his words, vsualizing these brief glimpses of a brave soul. Simply beautiful.

powerful

Easy to listen to, and just so damn powerful. I'll be listening to it again shortly.

Compelling and clear

What did you love best about When Breath Becomes Air?

I loved the beauty and I loved the after glow

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I loved the second half to the book, the first half got a little tedious for me, with all the surgeries and medical data

Any additional comments?

I loved how Lucy epilogue brought her in and the Katie....I have been thinking about it and how it affected my life, I saw how courageous he was.

a meaningful life

I found this to be quite moving. the final chapter was all about perfect love.

Raw and rich

Raw with emotions, rich with insight and thought provoking.

Do read if you want to ponder the end to your own life, or the lives of those you love.

A book about finding meaning

Where does When Breath Becomes Air rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

1

What did you like best about this story?

the final word of PK to his daughter is pure poetry; it can make a grown man cry.

Have you listened to any of Sunil Malhotra and Cassandra Campbell ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Any additional comments?

This book will leave you thinking about PK and his family long after you are done. In the end the book is a challenge to us all to find meaning in the world, to forget the ephemera, focus on who and what matters, and find the courage to face our own inevitable mortality.

touching story of surgeon becomes cancer patient

touching story of professional family and end of life experience through cancer care... includes wife's view at end of book which was a good closure

Incredible

Incredible story, incredible man and incredible writing. Highly recommend although it is a tear jerker for sure.

...

The balance between work and life is something that seems best answered by those who are in extreme situations like this.

Incredible book!

Beautifully written book. Such a vulnerable and touching story that shines with strength of the human spirit.