Buen Doctor

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, on the English- language edition [A] moving and penetrating memoir . . . This eloquent, heartfelt meditation on the choices that make live worth living, even as death looms, will prompt readers to contemplate their own values and mortality. --Booklist, on the English- language edition A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity . . . Writing isn't brain surgery, but it's rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. --Kirkus Reviews, on the English- language edition Inspiring . . . Kalanithi strives to define his dual role as physician and patient, and he weighs in on such topics as what makes life meaningful and how one determines what is most important when little time is left. . . . This deeply moving memoir reveals how much can be achieved through service and gratitude when a life is courageously and resiliently lived. --Publishers Weekly, on the English-language edition 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, on the English-language edition