When Breath Becomes Air

Selected as a Book of the Year by the New York Times, Evening Standard, Observer, Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday and The Economist

Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year

THE NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

THE SUNDAY TIMES 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 life is catastrophically interrupted? What does it mean to have a child as your own life fades away?