When Breath Becomes Air

   The author of this memoir is Paul Kalanithi, who was always interested in the question: "What makes human life meaningful?"  For this reason, he studied both biology and English literature in university.  He wondered where biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect.
Quote: "Literature not only illuminated another's experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection".  And reflect, he did!  For example, another quote: "If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?" 

    When he was finishing his residency in neurosurgery, Paul Kalanithi developed lung cancer.  So now he was a patient and a doctor.  
   There is a lot of medical jargon in this memoir, including detailed descriptions of brain surgeries that he performed, some while he was dying of cancer.  I skipped over some of that.  But the epilogue, written by his wife, is devastatingly powerful.
   This book is definitely not for everyone.  But my son died of lung cancer and my best friend's husband, a doctor, also just died of lung cancer.  I could see echoes of both of their lives in this memoir.  Surprisingly, it is very life-affirming.
"Even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living".