1. When Breath Becomes Air

At the age of 36, shortly before completing ten years of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer; One day he was a doctor treating the dying and the next he was a patient fighting for life. Air portrays Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student wondering what makes a virtuous and meaningful life to a neurosurgeon working on the core of human identity, the brain, and ultimately to a patient and a new parent. "What to do when life is disastrously disrupted? What does it mean to have a child while your life is fading?" Paul Kalanithi died while working on this deeply moving book, but his words remain as a guide for all of us. When Breath Becomes Air is an affirming reflection on how to deal with our mortality and the doctor-patient relationship by a talented writer who became both.

Recounts neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi's fight against Stage IV lung cancer. Kalanithi is raised in Kingman, Arizona; attends Stanford to study literature; and ultimately enrolls at Yale Medical School. Kalanithi meets his wife, Lucy, while in medical school, and they move to California to begin their residencies soon after. When Breath Becomes Air is neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi's heartbreaking memoir of life and death .Written in the last year of the author's life, while he was dying of Stage IV lung cancer, the memoir recounts Kalanithi's story: beginning with the onset of his symptoms, the book then takes readers back in time to trace his development from a bookish teenager and inquisitive student to a talented and well-trained resident with a bright future in neurosurgery ahead of him. Paul begins having symptoms while a resident in neurosurgery. His X-rays look fine to the physician covering for his usual doctor, and he relaxes a bit, chalking up his fatigue and pain to the long hours and stress of being a medical student; soon he begins experiencing chest pain. His interest in psychology and neuroscience increases, and he begins taking classes to fulfill the prerequisites for medical school. Paul spends a year studying medical history at Cambridge before he enrolls in medical school at Yale. He begins his practical training in the third year of medical school, starting off in obstetrics and gynecology, where he works in the.... Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this When Breath Becomes Air study guide. You'll get access to all of the When Breath Becomes Air content, as well as access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts.


2. Eat Pray Love

This is the story of the author's life, her search for meaning and the journey she takes to discover herself. Elizabeth Gilbert, thirty-two, had everything that made a perfect life, a successful career as a writer, a husband and a home. At least it looked like that with the others. But she was unhappy and their marriage didn't work out. After a chaotic divorce, she got into a relationship with someone else, but that didn't work out either. Gilbert then decided he needed a break to put his life in order and spent the following year traveling the world, four months in Italy, four months in India, and finally the next four months in Indonesia. Each stage of the journey was devoted to a different experience and exploration of a different aspect of life. In Italy, he indulged in the joys of eating and exploring the country. In India he embarked on a spiritual journey of discovery.

Gilbert is a writer by trade; she worked at GQ for five years and had already published two novels when Eat Pray Love was written. The occasion for the memoir is Gilbert's search for self in the wake of her divorce. After a very difficult legal settlement, a toxic affair and bought of severe depression, Gilbert decides to take a year to travel because she finally feels justified in doing something that she wants to do. Gilbert states in the Introduction that she has modelled the structure of her book on Indian prayer beads called japa malas. Eat Pray Love is divided into three main sections, each composed of 36 smaller parts, or "Beads" as Gilbert refers to them. Though she does not go into explicit detail about many of the reasons she chose to end her marriage, Gilbert does mention that she does not want to have children, even though she and her husband had agreed they would start trying to get pregnant after she turned 30.Gilbert understands this voice to be her own interior voice, and yet also thinks of it as having some kind of divine significance and understanding. The end of Gilbert's marriage is long and drawn out since her husband refuses to settle, and animosity grows between them. This experience has lasting significance for Gilbert and she uses this prediction in planning out her trip. The book ends as Liz falls in love again, both with herself and with a Brazilian man named Felipe.


3. Lean In


Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women's voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In this book the author examines why women's progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential. She is the chief operating officer of Facebook and is ranked on Fortune magazine's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2010, she gave an electrifying TED Talk in which she described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers. Her talk, which became a phenomenon and has been viewed more than two million times, encouraged women to "sit at the table," seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals with gusto. She digs deeper into these issues, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to cut through the layers of ambiguity and bias surrounding the lives and choices of working women. She recounts her own decisions, mistakes, and daily struggles to make the right choices for herself, her career, and her family. She provides advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career, urging women to set boundaries and to abandon the myth of "having it all." She describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women in the workplace and at home. The book is a call to action and a blueprint for individual growth; it is designed to change the conversation from what women can't do to what they can.

There is nowhere that gender inequality is really obvious than in leadership ranks: Globally, only 20% of parliament positions are controlled by women, and just 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. These numbers are conspicuous since in the term of academic accomplishment, averagely, women are better than men, getting 57% of all undergraduate degrees and 60% of master's degrees in the U.S. Still, in some way this surge of knowledgeable women going into the workforce becomes a trickle when they eventually get the leadership level. Whereas the majority of men naturally believe that they can have fulfilling personal lives and successful careers; women are regularly informed by society as well as the media that ultimately, they will need to compromise between career and family. These misunderstandings cause more insecurity in women, and insecurity can damage  your career: you need the confidence to support yourself at a senior job interview or to have a spot at an executive meeting.