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.