I guarantee that there is simply no option to finish this book and then forget it. Part of the immense impact of this book comes from the obvious fact that its author was such a brilliant polymath. Another part arises from the way he conveys what has happened to him – working and striving passionately, postponing rewards, waiting to live, learning to die – so effectively. None of this is sentimental. Nothing is exaggerated. As he wrote to a friend: "It is just tragic enough and just imaginable enough." And just important enough to be indispensable.

Paul Kalanithi's memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, written as he faced a terminal cancer diagnosis, is inherently sad. But it is an emotional investment that truly pays off: a moving experience.