Saturday, September 5, 2009

Book #53: Cutting for Stone

Title: Cutting for Stone
Author: Abraham Verghese

I know, I just said that if you read one book this year, it should be The Help, but if you read two books this year, the other one should be Cutting for Stone (thanks for the recommendation, Lucy!). On the back cover, Mark Salzman says: "Absolutely fantastic.... This book has everything: nuns, conjoined twins, civil war and medicine. If Vikram Seth and Oliver Sacks were to collaborate on a four-hour episode of Grey's Anatomy set in Africa, they could only hope to come up with something this moving and entertaining..."

Cutting for Stone is one of those books that you ignore laundry, ringing phones, and children to read. I hid away on the scratchy couch in the living, room, letting my kids watch a Pokemon marathon (Isaac got 40 hours of DVDs to help him through the recovery process). By the time I was done reading, I felt like I knew Marion Stone, knew Hema, his adoptive mother, celebrated their accomplishments and mourned their losses. It's a dramatic book with lots of action and betrayal and redemption (and great religious themes too), and it's also a simple story of family.

1 comment:

Durham said...

Thank you for your book reviews. You write them so well. They get me interested in the book without giving it all away. I'm going to look for this one and The Help. Thanks again.