When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi, M.D., was a neurosurgeon and writer. Paul grew up in Kingman, Arizona, before attending Stanford University, from which he graduated in 2000 with a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Human Biology. He earned an M.Phil in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine from the University of Cambridge before attending medical school. In 2007, Paul graduated cum-laude from the Yale School of Medicine, winning the Lewis H. Nahum Prize for outstanding research and membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. He returned to Stanford for residency training in Neurological Surgery and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience, during which he authored over twenty scientific publications and received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research.Paul’s reflections on doctoring and illness – he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2013, though he never smoked – have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Paris Review Daily, in addition to interviews in academic settings and media outlets such as MSNBC. Paul completed neurosurgery residency in 2014. Paul died in March, 2015, while working on When Breath Becomes Air, an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.. He is survived by his wife Lucy and their daughter Cady.

出版者:Random House

作者:Paul Kalanithi

页数:256

出版时间:2016-1-12

价格:USD 25.00

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780812988406

图书标签:英文原版生死人生医学死亡传记美国Paul_Kalanithi

For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?

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.

读后感

毛姆讲过一个叫“萨马拉之约”的寓言，说的萨马拉城里一个商人的仆人出门买菜，在市场遇到了死神，看到了死神威胁的手势，惊吓之后决定借了商人的马，逃往巴格达。商人出门也碰到了死神，便问他为何要吓唬自己的仆人。死神答道，那不是威胁，是我在萨马拉碰到他吓了一跳，我本...  

断断续续一周的时间，在上下班的地铁上，今天终于看完了《当呼吸化为空气》。合上书的一刻，心想，能出版这样一本书真是太好了。它很重要，它是勇者的书。 在封底的腰封上，印有保罗·卡拉尼什的话： “我选择医疗事业，部分原因是想追寻死神：抓住他，掀开他神秘的斗篷，与...  

Paul Kalanithi 的的遗书 当呼吸成为空气 开始真正吸引我的的时候是当他写到：我被成就感驱动的时刻渐渐变少， 如今驱使我生活着的是一种诚恳的、对于生活的试理解，即，什么赋予生命意义？ （I was driven less by achievement than by trying understanding in earnest：what...  

Had i been in his shoes, i would have been shattered wholely to my core and uncertain what else to do,especially given the condition where life's culmination was about to come. I sincerely appreciate the angle from his ,which showed an image of what my life...  

保罗自嘲活过了勃朗特三姐妹中的两位，活过了济慈，我在25岁的时候也自嘲活过了莱因哈特·冯·罗严克拉姆。 本书相当于保罗的一个未完成的自传，前面部分讲述保罗的成长经历，从文学的道路转变到医学的道路，后面讲述保罗患病之后的经过和心理状态，直到无法再继续写作为止。 ...  

用户评价

从english literature到medicine，从doctor到patient。 除了他直面死亡的勇气和integrity，更加打动我的是他一路以来在如此高强度和numbing的neurosurgery practice下坚持着对morality和science之间关系偏执般的求索，以及他对病人表现出来的enormous empathy and respect。

斯坦福神经外科第七年住院医的时候发现了肿瘤，从医生到病人的心路转换。文笔不是一般的好。

这类型personal的书，只适合在非常想要寻找意义的阶段去阅读和思考。这不是一款给人谈资，闲聊的书。

"Paul confronted death-examined it, wrestled it, accepted it-as a physician and a patient." 死亡来临的时候，他说I'm ready。 看到后面哽咽了好几次。

第一次听有声书，不太习惯朗读者的拿腔拿调，让文字失去了想象空间。这本书的内容和视角都比较个人化，很感人但内容略微单薄，文笔也有点生硬，也许是时间所迫。敬佩作者的勤奋专注，这是面对死亡能做出最有力的反击。