Book of The Month: "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi
Editor’s note: Don’t read this if death freaks you out. If you’re excited about “running through the tape”, like I am, it’s a mandatory read. Dr. Kalanithi brilliantly wrote his journey from terminal diagnosis to his last days. The writing is enhanced by a prologue written by Abraham Verghese and an epilogue written by his surviving wife, Lucy. For me, this exploration of the meaning of life borders on my all-time favorite, equally hard to read memoir by Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
Favorite excerpt:
“When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”