SKU: 28566010817

When Breath Becomes Air

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When Breath Becomes AirMass Market Paperback 256 pages #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living? Unmissable . . . Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option.Janet Maslin, The New York Times ONE OF THE BEST

Mass Market Paperback | 256 pages

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD

This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living?

“Unmissable . . . Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, People, NPR, The Washington Post, Slate, Harper’s Bazaar, Time Out New York, Publishers Weekly, BookPage

An Oprah Daily Best Nonfiction Book of the Past Two Decades • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir

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SKU: 28566010817

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4.2 ★★★★★
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Cita
Carnegie, US
★★★★★ 5
Fascinating and beautifully written.
Format: Hardcover
Clear and compelling reading of the much-neglected history of Carthage -- all its histories had been written by the victors in Rome. BTEW y four-colour photo insert was missing a page....shame on Norton, the puboisher.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2026
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Nana & Granddad
Lexington, US
★★★★★ 4
Excellent Overview of Carthage
Format: Hardcover
293 pages of text/maps/b&w figures; 8 pages of color plates; 15 pages of end notes (mostly citations); 20 page Bibliography; 6 page Primary Bibliography; 2 page Acknowledgements; 8 area maps; 1 battle map [Cannae]. This is a well written history of Carthage. It provides a one source overview of the background and history of the city/empire. As a reasonably well read layperson, I am familiar at an overview level with the Punic Wars, Rome, Alexander, and the Alexandrine successor states and this book packaged Carthaginian information very well while adding interesting information that I hadn't come across before. I was somewhat disappointed (hence the 4 star rather than 5 star rating) that there was a very limited drill down to a lower level of detail, particularly from such a noted author. However, this is probably an unfair criticism given the limited amount of archeological information available and the millennia of effort that has been spent in pigeonholing Carthage according to the desired perceptions. I recommend the book highly as a well written overview of Carthage.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2026
N
Verified Purchase
Norm G
Louisville, US
★★★★★ 5
Brilliant book
Format: Hardcover
Brilliant book. An insightful synthesis of history, myth, and archaeology. Highly recommend.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2026
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Peter Kurtz
Omaha, US
★★★★★ 5
Excellent
Format: Hardcover
Excellent
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Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2026
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Douglas Thorpe
Phoenix, US
★★★★★ 4
Great substance; lousy writing.
Format: Kindle
Reviewing this book is not an easy task. Previously I had very limited knowledge of this period of history. With no background, I found the subject spellbinding. The author has done a wonderful job of gathering, and reconciling, ancient sources of mixed reliability. But, in undertaking that task, the text becomes repetitive, difficult to follow and frankly just plain boring. In addition, the writing style and format detracts substantially from the pleasure of learning from the substance. Everything from run-on sentences with mixed subjects to unclear antecedents, to character confusion because of similarity of names and the author's expectation that one can remember which player is on stage at any given moment. My main criticism of the book is that the downsides could have been avoided by application of the skills of a decent editor who instinctively would have addressed and corrected the confusion in presentation that made it a very difficult read. I hope that a cleaned up edition is prepared and the book released again; I think the effort would be worth the result.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2026

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