Recommendations
Books Like When Breath Becomes Air
Best books to read after When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
When Breath Becomes Air is a meditation on mortality, meaning, and the doctor-patient relationship written by a neurosurgeon facing his own death — one of the most beautifully written medical memoirs ever published. These 8 books extend into mortality, medical experience, the meaning of life, and the literature of illness and dying.
- 1
Buy on AmazonBeing Mortal
by Atul Gawande
Surgeon Atul Gawande's account of how modern medicine has changed the experience of aging and dying — and what it means to help people live and die well — the closest companion to Kalanithi's book in subject, voice, and the medical-ethical questions it raises.
- 2
Buy on AmazonThe Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
Joan Didion's memoir of grief after the sudden death of her husband — the most acclaimed account of mourning in modern American literature, and the book that approaches Kalanithi's subject from the surviving partner's perspective.
- 3
Buy on AmazonMan's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
Frankl's account of finding meaning under conditions of extreme suffering — the philosophical companion to Kalanithi's existential confrontation with terminal illness, arguing that meaning can be found in unavoidable suffering itself.
- 4
Buy on AmazonMortality
by Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens's essays written during the period of his esophageal cancer diagnosis and treatment — unflinching, atheist, brilliant, and written with the same urgency and literary quality as Kalanithi's memoir, from a completely different philosophical position.
- 5
Buy on AmazonH Is for Hawk
by Helen Macdonald
Macdonald's memoir of training a goshawk after her father's sudden death — grief transmuted into a specific and consuming obsession, written with extraordinary prose that approaches Kalanithi's literary quality from the memoir of loss perspective.
- 6
Buy on AmazonThe Emperor of All Maladies
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee's 'biography of cancer' — the history of cancer medicine from ancient Egypt to targeted therapies, providing the medical and historical context for Kalanithi's diagnosis and treatment.
- 7
Buy on AmazonThe Diving Bell and the Butterfly
by Jean-Dominique Bauby
Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir of life after a catastrophic stroke — dictated letter by letter by blinking his left eye — a testament to the persistence of consciousness and creativity under the most extreme physical limitation, written with the same determination as When Breath Becomes Air.
- 8
Buy on AmazonGratitude
by Oliver Sacks
Neurologist Oliver Sacks's final essays, written when he learned he was dying of terminal liver cancer — on gratitude, identity, the meaning of a life in science, and what he wanted from the time that remained — the direct counterpart to Kalanithi's meditation.
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