DPL Book Group: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

6:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Event Details

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

At the age of 36, on the verge of a completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi's health began to falter. He started losing weight and was wracked by waves of excruciating back pain. A CT scan confirmed what Paul, deep down, had suspected: he had stage four lung cancer, widely disseminated. 

One day, he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined, the culmination of decades of striving, evaporated. With incredible literary quality, philosophical acuity, and medical authority, When Breath Becomes Air approaches the questions raised by facing mortality from the dual perspective of the neurosurgeon who spent a decade meeting patients in the twilight between life and death, and the terminally ill patient who suddenly found himself living in that liminality.


New members welcome!

The DPL Book Group meets on the 3rd Thursday of each month from August to May, at 6:30-7:30 pm in the Gold Room of the Main Library. Copies of the book are available at the circulation desk of the Main Library 4 weeks before the meeting.

Event Type(s): Book Club
Age Group(s): Adults, Seniors