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badbrad002's reviews
159 reviews
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
4.0
I finished When Breath Becomes Air, the memoir of neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi after he is diagnosed with terminal cancer at age 35. He is skilled at humanizing clinical procedures that he had performed, without alienating or confusing the reader (notably at one point, comparing adjacent healthy and still births). His wife punctuates the book with an epilogue, in which she writes "what happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy." Understandably, a powerful read.
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
4.0
After a year-and-a-half (I've had a tumultuous couple years, and of course had to pause to plan my own adventures by reading Lonely Planet(s) New Zealand, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Morocco, Iceland, and Scotland!), on the plane yesterday I finally finished The Lost City of Z, documenting Percy Fawcett's quest -and subsequent searches of his final trek- to find the lost megalopolis in Amazon Basin. The book tells the story of culture that -to this day- we still know very little about, due in part to persistent cultural biases and the voracious speed of reforestation. Written through the lens of both historical and experiential accounts, it's a great read for an adventurous spirit!