This month we will be reading, "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi. Click on the event title for more information.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • 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
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.
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. 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.
How it Works?
Literary Book Club meets on the last Friday of the month at 11am. We read both fiction and non-fiction. All are welcome to our discussions. Books will be available at the main desk in early January. We provide regular print, large print, and audio when it is available. If you would like an alternative format, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate your request!
If you have questions or would like to be added to the Literary Book Club email list, contact Rebecca at renman@peterboroughnh.gov or call the Help Desk: 603-924-8040.
Peterborough Town Library, located downtown at the corner of Main and Concord/Rt 202, has a large meeting room, study rooms, classroom, and a board room available to the public.
