When Breath Becomes Air

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.