Why am I passionate about this?
I’m a philosopher and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, where I teach students and conduct scholarship mainly for my colleagues and policymakers. But my popular writing is driven by the belief that many of the things I find interesting to think and write about are interesting not because I’m an academic—but because I’m a human, and so it’s likely that other humans would find them interesting too. So, while I enjoy dissecting esoteric scholarship as much as the next professor, my passion is exploring important ideas in a format that everyone can enjoy. This has been the goal of my first two books and will hopefully be the goal of many more.
Travis' book list on philosophy books for everyone
Why did Travis love this book?
This is an absolutely devastating book. I read it in a single sitting some years ago, and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped thinking about it. And if “devastating” doesn’t sound like a recommendation, I understand, and yet—it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Although Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon, not a professional philosopher, he was a humanist in the best sense of the word, constantly struggling to make meaning in his life through philosophy, literature, and the arts. When he receives what will be his terminal cancer diagnosis, his big question is: do I do surgery with the time I have left? Or write a book? He ends up doing a bit of both, all the while looking for meaning—both in the time he has left and in his quickly approaching death.
I think I learned more about life and death and how I want to live from…
8 authors picked When Breath Becomes Air as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
**THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER**
'Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.' Atul Gawande, bestselling author of Being Mortal
What makes life worth living in the face of death?
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live.
When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and…