When Breath Becomes Air
by Paul Kalanithi
★ Top 10 book of 2016 · #9 on Best Books of 2016
Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi wrote this memoir about his life and his fight with stage IV metastatic lung cancer. It was published in January 2016, after his death.
Best for: Readers drawn to reflective memoirs about illness, mortality and a doctor's life
When Breath Becomes Air is #9 on BookWard's Best Books of 2016, out of 68 2016 books that cleared our data bar.
What When Breath Becomes Air is about
Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon in training when he became a patient. His memoir follows his life from a childhood move out of Bronxville, New York, to Kingman, Arizona, where his mother nurtured a love of literature by bringing home college reading lists. It continues through degrees in English and human biology at Stanford, further study at Cambridge, medical school at Yale, where he met his wife, Lucy, and a neurosurgical residency back at Stanford.
In his last year of residency, weight loss and back and chest pains were followed by a lung cancer diagnosis. From there the book looks at what makes a life meaningful when time is short, how medicine and morality meet, and what it is like to cross from the doctor's side of the conversation to the patient's. He and Lucy also chose to have a child. Reflective and moving, it will speak to readers who have faced illness or loss, or who simply want to think about how to spend their days.
When Breath Becomes Air on the Best Books of 2016
When Breath Becomes Air came out in 2016. Of the 68 books first published in 2016 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #9 on our Best Books of 2016 list.
Why it made the list: 1,057 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.2 out of 5 (42 ratings); 47 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 2016 list
- Ikigai Héctor García, #7
- Punk 57 Penelope Douglas, #8
- Deep Work Cal Newport, #10
- Crooked Kingdom Leigh Bardugo, #11
See all Best Books of 2016 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2015 Best Books of 2017.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 946 want to read it, 47 are reading it now and 64 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 4.2 out of 5 from 42 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 84 | 55% |
| Reader love | 78 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 76 | 20% |
Questions about When Breath Becomes Air
When was When Breath Becomes Air published?
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi was first published in 2016.
Was When Breath Becomes Air one of the best books of 2016?
When Breath Becomes Air is #9 on BookWard's Best Books of 2016, out of 68 2016 books that cleared our data bar. 1,057 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.2 out of 5 (42 ratings); 47 are reading it right now.
Why is When Breath Becomes Air on the Best Books of 2016 list?
1,057 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.2 out of 5 (42 ratings); 47 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 2016
- It Ends with Us Colleen Hoover, #1
- Dog Man Dav Pilkey, #2
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson, #3
- Never Split the Difference Chris Voss, #4
- The Hidden Oracle Rick Riordan, #5
- Born a Crime Trevor Noah, #6
See the full Best Books of 2016, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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