When Breath Becomes Air is neurosurgeon and author Paul Kalanithi's 2016 memoir chronicling his life and his life-ending illness -- stage IV metastatic lung cancer. He begins to notice symptoms as he is on the verge of completing nearly ten years of training to become a neurosurgeon. One day, as he describes, he was a doctor in charge of treating the dying. The same, he was the same patient struggling for his life. He examines the effect of his illness on his day-to-day life and how he struggled to achieve his life-long goal in the face of such a harsh and unforgiving illness (he succeeded in becoming a neurosurgeon, but passed away shortly before this book was released to the public). Along the way, he ruminates over his life, philosophy, and ultimately, what makes life worth living. In what is the crux of the book, Kalanithi mentions: "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'"
Upon release, When Breath Becomes Air was met with almost unanimous acclaim. On Amazon, the book has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars. On book review aggregating site Goodreads.com, the book received a similarly spectacular review of 4.34 out of 5 stars. Nora Krug of the Washington Post writes that "[When Breath Becomes Air is] an emotional investment well worth making: a moving and thoughtful memoir of family, medicine and literature. It is, despite its grim undertone, accidentally inspiring." When Breath Becomes Air is not yet a classic, but it very well may be. It is inspirational, philosophical, and genuinely impressive.
