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Cutting for Stone  By  cover art

Cutting for Stone

By: Abraham Verghese
Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
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Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of The Covenant of Water: A beautifully written, page-turning family saga of Ethiopia and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. • “Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters.... Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist.” —USA Today

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 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.

This sweeping, emotionally riveting novel that "shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life" (Los Angeles Times).

©2009 Abraham Verghese (P)2009 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Abraham Verghese is a doctor, an accomplished memoirist and, as he proves in Cutting for Stone, something of a magician as a novelist. This sprawling, 50-year epic begins with a touch of alchemy: the birth of conjoined twins to an Indian nun in an Ethiopian hospital in 1954. The likely father, a British surgeon, flees upon the mother’s death, and the (now separated) baby boys are adopted by a loving Indian couple who run the hospital. Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters–and opening a fascinating window onto the Third World–Cutting for Stone is an underdog and a winner. Shades of Slumdog Millionaire.”–Jocelyn McClurg, USA Today

“A novel set in Africa bears a heavy burden. The author must bring the continent home to help the reader sit in a chair and imagine vast, ancient, sorrowful, beautiful Africa. In the last decade I’ve read books narrated by characters homesick for Africa; books by or about child soldiers; books about politics; books full of splintering history.... Lush and exotic . . . richly written.”–Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

“Any doubts you might harbor about a 534-page first novel by a physician in his 50s will be allayed in the first few pages of this marvelous book. Abraham Verghese has written two graceful memoirs, but Cutting for Stone, his wildly imaginative fictional debut, is looser, bigger, even better.... The doctor in him sees the luminous beauty of the physician’s calling; the artist recognizes that there remain wounds no surgeon can men. ‘Where silk and steel fail, story must succeed,’ Marion muses. This one does.”–Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly; Grade: A

What listeners say about Cutting for Stone

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Moving story

The story was so heart felt. It was full of world history and medical history. The characters came alive with the narration by a wonder reader.

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Vividly transports you around the globe and into the world of medicine

Excellent narration of a very deep dive into the mid-century world of Ethiopia and doctors who practiced there

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So good

Deftly written and performed. This is a book to remember. Vivid characters with academic subject matter coming to life while knitting personal sorrows, trauma, inequity, culture and victories.

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Excellent!

What a beautiful book. The narration is also superb. This is the best audiobook I have listened to of many.

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Truly Eloquent listening!

Overall this work is an easy classic. Sweeping and vibrant. The performance is well done and well balanced. The story is so delicately and masterfully woven.

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Must listen to!!!!

I absolutely loved this book. Didn’t want it to end. Can’t wait to read or listen to his next. Narrator awesome

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Don’t miss this one!

Absolutely one of the best books I’ve ever experienced. And it is an experience!!
I will seek out more books from Mr Verghese in the future.

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Cutting for Stone

I found a story engaging from the very beginning but towards the end it felt a bit predictable. The descriptions of medical practices gave depth to the story, especially when comparing Ethiopia to the United States. Most of the time I liked the narration, but when it came to Stone and his family of origin the accents just sounded strange and the American accents were too flat. I can’t imagine how much time and work went into creating such a unique saga.

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Throughly enjoyed!

Now this is WRITING!!! And the narration…SUPERB!!! Now I will look for other books by this author and narrator.

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Amazing!!

Beautifully written with a litany of wonderful messages for us all. I couldn’t stop listening to it and marveled at the content. As a physician, I heard so many things I had heard and felt. Simply one of the best books I have ever read.

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