A sweeping, emotionally riveting novel with over one million copies sold—an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and … preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.
Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.
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This book is magical and heart-wrenching. Marvelous characters in marvelous circumstances. Great attention to detail. This author gets it right over and over again. Gets it right about people, gets it right about history, gets it right about surgery. An astonishing accomplishment.
From page one the writing, plot and characters engaged me in the world of culture, travel , medicine and religion . I have never enjoyed an author’s creation as much as “ Cutting For Stone” in my five decades of savoring the written word.
Cutting for Stone is an epic, sweeping novel that travels from turn of the (twentieth) century India to mid-century Ethiopia and onward to twenty-first century America. It is the story of Marion and Shiva Praise Stone, but more than that it is a story of man’s unparalleled ability to make terrible, terrible decisions, most often when blinded by love.
Marion and Shiva are identical twins, bound together, yet simultaneously torn apart. They come of age at the Missing Hospital, shaped by constant presence of medicine in their lives, by the many ways the human body can fail, and death can come. As Ethiopia descends into chaos and war, Missing Hospital becomes their anchor, the place where they can find safety and shelter and home.
Until, of course, the day they can’t.
Verghese’s prose is beautiful and very often heart-wrenching, with a wisdom that is more than page-deep. “We come unbidden into this life,” he writes early in Cutting for Stone, “and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot.” He does not mince his words.
Wonderful in too many ways to count, you will most likely need more than one tissue before you finish. But you can’t finish if you don’t start.
The writing is phenomenal, makes reading the intense, detailed medical passages easier to read. This book broadened my vocabulary, medical knowledge, and my knowledge of a different part of the world. The plot just keeps giving.
Wonderful with capital W. One of the best.
I love books about the history of medicine. The human love and suffering is presented with great detail. I have never read about Ethiopia and found it fascinating. This story covers so many depths of life, suffering and victory..
One of the best books I’ve ever read. Highly recommend you get it RIGHT NOW & get to reading!
Everyone should read
Kept me interested from the first page. The characters become part of you and stay with you for a long time after you have to leave them.
One of best books I’ve ever read and then listened to the audio version which was great as well.
I had no preconceived ideas about this book and was enthralled. I am still enjoying it, savoring the moments I can find with the story.
Riveting story, I couldn’t put it down.
I absolutely loved this book! The characters and the setting was unique. It was engrossing. I am a fan of long books, and this book is 688 pages. I wished the author had written other novels.
The only book I have ever read twice!!! It is wonderful!!
Well written
It was the worst book I ever read. Author jumped around. You didn’t know what way happening to the characters. The book was 600 pages and he could have written it in 200, very wordy. It took place in Ethiopia so the words you couldn’t pronounce or make up a word to use. I would NOT recommend this book. My book club read it, no one finished the book, I only read 250 pages. No one in the club finished it or like it either.
One of my all time favorite books. Highly recommend.
Really a great book!
This is one of my favorite reads. I loved the way the characters evolved and how connected they were to the whole story. It was a book that I wanted to get to the end quickly to find out what happens, but I was regretful the story was over.
Maybe not high on the ethical ladder,this book was a great read for human compassion, empathy, and quite realistic. A story of love in the highest regard of humanity. If you happen to be a judgemental person, read something else, otherwise enjoy.