I haven't read a good biography in the longest time, and I can honestly say it has been long overdue.
"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 in search of 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."
When I started reading When Breath Becomes Air three days ago, a sad song happened to be playing in the background and when I came to the last pages of this book, a sad song happened to be playing from my playlist. I would like to blame the music on my heightened emotions or instant connection to this book; however it is the author. Paul Kalanithi takes you through each emotion, that he experienced before his cancer diagnosis and every experience after his cancer diagnosis up until the very end.
What did we love about this book?
Absolutely Everything, from the prologue, to the epilogue written by Paul Kalanithi's wife Lucy.
What did we not love?
The last page of the book, I don't know if its that its a case of me not loving the last page, its more of the realization that, that was the end. I don't know if heartbreaking is the appropriate word.
Favorite quotes:
“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.”
Happy Reading!
Comments
Post a Comment