When Breath Becomes Air Review "A vital book about dying. Awe-inspiring and exquisite. Obligatory reading for the living." (Nigella Lawson)"Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful." (Atul Gawande, author of BEING MORTAL)"A great, indelible book ... as intimate and illuminating as Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal,” to cite only one recent example of a doctor’s book that has had exceptionally wide appeal ... I guarantee that finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option ... gripping from the start ... 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." (New York Times)"Powerful and poignant." (The Sunday Times)"Less a memoir than a reflection on life and purpose… A vital book." (The Economist)"Extraordinary…Remarkable… luminous, revelatory memoir about mortality and what makes being alive meaningful ... Lyrical, intimate, insistent and profound. Kalanithi had the mind of the polymath and the ear of a poet." (Heather Hodson Daily Telegraph)"Powerful and poignant… Elegantly written posthumous memoir… Should be compulsory for anyone who intends to be a doctor… A profound reflection on the meaning of life." (Daisy Goodwin Sunday Times)"A stark, fascinating, well-written and heroic memoir." (Stefanie Marsh The Times)"The power of this book lies in its eloquent insistence that we are all confronting our mortality every day, whether we know it or not. The real question we face, Kalanithi writes, is not how long, but rather how, we will live – and the answer does not appear in any medical textbook." (Alice Okeeffe Guardian)"Exceptional." (Katie Law Evening Standard) 				    	 					 About the Author PAUL KALANITHI was a neurosurgeon and writer. He held degrees in English literature, human biology, and history and philoso­phy of science and medicine from Stanford and Cambridge universities before graduating from Yale School of Medicine. He also received the American Academy of Neu­rological Surgery’s highest award for research.His reflections on doctoring and illness have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Paris Review Daily. Kalanithi died in March 2015, aged 37. He is survived by his wife, Lucy, and their daughter, Elizabeth Acadia.