Welcome to Litsy!

I don't think I've ever read a deeper or more moving autobiography than this. It's a great start to 2020.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
#audible

Listened to audio version. Even knowing how it ends, I cried all the tears when it came to the last chapter and epilogue. Some of the medical terms went over my head, but it was well written.

#audible 🧡

Paul Kalanithi chronicles the story of his life, terminal diagnosis, and passage to death in his book. At times an eye-opening account, it is both beautiful & tragic. His story has made me appreciate life more, as well as change the way I look at my own impending demise. While I hope it's awhile down the road, no one can ever be sure when their time will come. It's a book everyone should read at some point in their lives, the sooner the better.

Test

https://ew.com/books/2019/11/27/best-nonfiction-books-2010s/

So with this list my showing is very poor (as expected)!! 🤦‍♀️
2/10 on main list and only 2/10 on the next ten...
So only 4/20 ....
How many have you read? 😊💕

It‘s an eye opening experience reading this book to rethink about our life before we face death. A doctor faces death every day and some even become immune to it. Im compelled to acknowledge how the dynamic of their relationship changes and stay strong despite the hardship they encounter and this is just one of the story that make me believe,there is someone out there willing to go through thick and thin with you.

What should I read next?

Amazing...gut wrenching...and beautiful. I work in one if the top Cancer Hospitals in the US...I thought I understood...I really didn‘t till now.

At the beginning of the year I challenged myself to read at least one non fiction choice a month. These are the ones I‘ve read so far. 2 more to go. What has been your favorite non fiction book this year? #GratefulReads

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

Outstanding and completely devastating

Emotional!! The Author not only gives you the perspective of a Doctor treating his patients but after being diagnosed with Cancer, honestly tells you about how a patient feels & most importantly what doctors can learn on the Human Relationality side while treating. Bow down to Paul who fought like a warrior and lived up to the essence of life. No review can do justice to his writing. A book to be remembered for ages to come.

“You can‘t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”

- Paul Kalanithi
#nevergiveup #searchforperfection #believe #whenbreathbecomesair

“With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but ‘tis commonly no easy matter to get out of it.”

⭐️

Congrats on the major milestone, @GrilledCheeseSamurai !! The tagged book is my favorite read this year because it really changed how I look at how other books are written. It‘s hard not to compare after that beautiful writing. Litsy has had a really good influence on my life. It‘s helped me make reading a priority again and also helps me put my feelings about books into words. Tagging @bcncookbookclub #sixdigitsamurai

This is a beautiful memoir. It could only have been made exquisite had this neurosurgeon time to ponder the parts of his story that yearned for detail or perfected writing. But time did not belong to him.
I can‘t imagine what it takes to write through incredible physical pain, still saving lives, experiencing the new life of your only child - all while acutely aware of your own death.

1* “Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.” Paul Kalanithi, tagged book

2* tagged

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView

What a great read about life and death.

I'm not sure if the story got me, or if it is the fact that this book was published posthumously, but this book will pull the heartstrings! At the same time, maybe because I went the audiobook route, I did feel a slight distance throughout the book that I left me wishing for something more. I can't figure out if it's the writing, the reading, or my personal mindset while listening to it that is responsible for it. 🤔 Overall, it's a good read.

1. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. 2. Neither. 3. Sunrise. I love to read with the sun coming up. 4. I‘d make a downpayment on a new car or put it on my mortgage. 5. Probably fourth grade.

“A word meant something only between people, and life‘s meaning, it‘s virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form . . . Somehow this process existed in brains and bodies, subject to their own physiologic imperatives, prone to breaking and failing.”

40 pages in & I‘m floored. Wish I‘d read this book sooner. As an aspiring physician, he says everything I‘ve wanted to express, and more. What a mind, what a heart he had.

Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.

Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

#favourites #memoir #quote

Incredibly moving story of a physician coping with his own mortality in the face of terminal illness before he has realized his full potential.

This book was absolutely amazing it really is. I think that anyone interested in any part of the medical feild should read this book it will make you laugh and make you cry I absolutely loved it could not put it down

Day 1 of the #24b4Monday challenge. It was a great start with three books finished!

Slaughterhouse-Five: Not an uplifting read, but it was an interesting approach to post-WWII disillusionment. Also, if I ever hear “so it goes” again, I might die. 😂

When Breath Becomes Air: A Goodreads review describes this as “a gasping, desperate, powerful little book,” which is a perfect description of this truly amazing book.
#bookishbingo: Nurse protagonist

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Paul is a 36 year old neurosurgeon with stage four lung cancer. If you can hang, read this book. It‘s a hard book if you‘re hurting from cancer.

3 ⭐
Tricky to review this one because obviously the author has passed away and it was written while he was terminally ill. But it wasn't what I expected at all. I enjoyed the parts that were about his illness, diagnosis and treatment, but there wasn't enough about that. The parts that were about his broader life were so full of unchecked privilege that it was hard to get through.

I decide to do regular health check from now on

This should be required reading for all medical students.

Such a moving, well-written book. It depends on the person and where they are in their journey, but this might be too intense for those in the throes of dealing with a cancer diagnosis or TBI.

An important, life changing read. I knew what i was going in for when i picked it up (heartbreaking), but i have come out gaining wisdom on significance of relationships we forge, finding joy in what we do (for work and leisure), letting go the trivialities, understanding inevitability of death, and most supremely the meaning of life. This is something i see myself reading again in future. A profound memoir!

I don't know who's gonna kiss you when I'm gone
So I'm gonna love you now, like it's all I have
I know it'll kill me when it's over
I don't wanna think about it, I want you to love me now🎶

Amidst a blossoming career as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at the age of 36. He died before completing his book. You can see in the image how much love this family had for each other
#lovemenow #amonthofsongs

I couldn't put it down!

#anglophileapril

(Day 20 - #EveryBreathYouTake)

*I haven‘t read this book, but I‘ve read about it...this doctor, who died at age 37, wrote a bestselling memoir about his struggle with lung cancer. The prompt reminded me that I need to read this book (maybe we all should read it). I‘ve read only great things about Kalanithi‘s book (forward is contributed by Abraham Verghese, another inspired writer).

I would not recommend reading this book on your commute. Unless you enjoy crying in front of strangers, in which case I would highly recommend reading this book on your commute. Loved the above quote that Kalanithi references several times throughout (it‘s Samuel Beckett) and the above picture was an installation at Art Basel by Alfredo Jaar. Read the book.

This book is so full of meaning with its thoughtful reflections and wise conclusions about terminal illness and death. As a person who struggles with chronic illness and lost her father to cancer at 19, this was a difficult but thoroughly worthy read.

“What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.”

I‘m not crying, you‘re crying. #sadbooks #memoir

Be prepared to love this man and be devastated at the end. I sobbed through the epilogue, half for the loss of Paul, and half in preemptive grief at the thought of losing my own husband. This is a stunning book. Part autobiography, but mostly existential examination of what it is to really live. The epitome of an examined life. Why did I wait so long to read it? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can't add much to the many positive reviews from critics and readers alike. It is beautifully written and it will likely touch you in unexpected ways. We know the ending but Paul Kalanithi's work reminds us that it is the journey that has meaning. Our lives are enriched each time we join someone on this journey or begin our own.

Kindle deal for $1.99 USD 🥳 if you can handle the content 😭

The problem, however, eventually became evident: to make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning--to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in.

I was pursuing medicine to bear witness to the twinned mysteries of death...

This was a powerful and moving memoir. Much like Tuesday's with morrie, but more personal. Beautiful writing and powerful prose.

I had met her in a place where she was a person, instead of a problem to be solved.

The author was a medical student, aspiring to be one of the best, when he was diagnosed with cancer. Such an insightful look on life and death from a doctor‘s and patient‘s perspective. This is his brave and inspirational story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can‘t even begin to imagine the enormity of such a realization. We the living take so much of it for granted, forgetting we will all share in a few key experiences, chief among those being death. When Breath Becomes Air was well written, sometimes scientific, and a interesting glimpse into death.

#overdrive #nonfiction #saturdaymornings

Thought-provoking

#WhenIGrowUp, he thought, I will be a famous neurosurgeon, but it went different. Kalanithi died of cancer at 37 years old.

The way he approaches the diagnosis is very scientific, probably the only way for him to deal with the situation. I can understand but it made this a difficult read for me as it felt very detached. The epilogue by his wife was heartbreaking though. How I wish for a world without cancer.

#MusicalNewYear #ReadingUSA2019 CA