I was invited to join a book club recently, and I was really excited because the amount of reading I’ve done last year and this year has been sad. In 2018, I read 20 of my 30 book goal. This year, I’ve finished 11 of my 25 book goal.
Naturally, one would think “just lower your goal, and you won’t feel so disappointed. The thing is, I know I can do it. In 2017, I hit 42 books. Granted, I’ve put myself on a more rigorous writing schedule starting last year, so my reading time took a hit. Time management is probably the skill I need to work on the most.
Anyway, I joined this book club, so now I have goals and deadlines (which apparently I need). Additionally, I get exposed to books I probably wouldn’t have read or may be lower on my TBR. I also don’t read a lot of non-fiction, and the first two books I’ve read with this club are both autobiography/memoir. Look at me getting out of my box!
Last month, we read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. It’s about a 36-year old neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. The book was published posthumously, and it’s a heartbreaking read that delves into trying to understand death.
The book was selected by a woman in our group who is a doctor. She had read it when it came out in 2016, but wanted to reread it and have discussion with the rest of us. She related her own experiences with medical school and talked about working with cadavers in much the same way Dr. Kalanithi did. For me, it’s one thing to read a book about someone I don’t know, but having someone with similar experiences share their insight adds an extra layer of depth and understanding to the reading. (This club is going to be so disappointed when they ask me to choose a book to read. Haha!)
As mothers, we all talked about the decision Dr. Kalanithi and his wife (also a doctor) made to have a child despite knowing that he was going to die. It’s the whole circle of life conversation, a life for a life. But it’s not a normal conversation you have with your spouse when you’re deciding to have a child. The Kalanithis had to answer questions no parent-to-be should have to:
Are you willing to be a single mother? (Granted, she could remarry.)
Are you okay knowing that you will never see your daughter grow up?
Will our daughter be angry with us for bringing her into this world where she will not remember her father?
It’s heartbreaking.
Yet, at the end of the book, I didn’t have a sense of overwhelming sadness or depression. The book is about Dr. Kalanithi’s desire to understand and face death through fully living his life.
Because I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living.
He was an extremely gifted neurosurgeon who talked about the massive workload and endless study and quest for perfection. He was tired and overworked, but kept going because he wanted to understand the human condition and because he knew he had a calling. As he said himself, no one wants to be a neurosurgeon. It’s easier to be a different kind of doctor and make a lot of money and have your beautiful house, your amazing vacations, and have a great life. However, when you have a calling, and you know deep in your bones that that is what you’re supposed to do, it’s not going to be easy.
Reading the book makes you wish you had a chance to meet him, to know him and engage in discussions about life with him over a dram of scotch (Ardbeg, one of my favorite whisky distilleries, is mentioned by name, so he obviously had excellent taste.) He loved literature.
I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion.
He was open-minded, very scientific, and pondered the existence of the human soul, and therefore, the existence of God.
That’s not to say that if you believe in meaning, you must also believe in God. It is to say, though, that if you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you are almost obligated to conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn’t have any. In other words, existential claims have no weight; all knowledge is scientific knowledge.
You can find the rest of my book highlights on Goodreads.
5 STARS ON GOODREADS
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads. Here’s my rating system:
5 stars: I love this book so much that I must own a physical copy of it. I’m definitely going to recommend it to people.
4 stars: This was a great book. I love it, but I don’t need to own a physical copy. I’ll definitely recommend it to people.
3 stars: This is a really good book. I was entertained.
2 stars: This book was fine. I don’t hate it or anything. It was fine.
1 star: This book wasn’t for me. It might be for someone else, though. There are probably a lot of reasons why it isn’t for me. I’m not hating, though.
0 stars: I’ve read it, or maybe I didn’t finish it. I didn’t enjoy it.
Comment below and let me know what you thought of this book!