Books That Will Shape Your Life
This section of our website is in honor of Dr. Paul Kalanithi.
The late Paul Kalanithi, who became a philosopher, neurosurgeon, and author of a #1 New York Times Bestseller When Breath Becomes Air (2016) before he passed away in his late 30s, was the son of immigrants and went to high school in a county with a public school system that was rated by the U.S. Census as the least educated district in America. He explains in When Breath Becomes Air (2016) “My mother, afraid the impoverished school system would hobble her children, acquired, from somewhere, a ‘college prep reading list’….She had not read many of the books on the list herself. But she would make sure her kids were not deprived… Endles books and authors followed….Books became my closest confidants, finely ground lenses providing new views of the world” (pp. 26-27).