Rated of 5
by Andy Greensfelder Complexity of Character
I loved Cutting for Stone, including for some of the reasons it is criticized, like the inclusion of descriptions of medical procedures. Mostly I love the characterization of the narrator, Marion Stone, for the complex combination of sympathetic and maddening behavior, and attitudes. Marion sees his world through eyes that the reader knows often distort what he sees, a condition that is sometimes true for all of us. The distortions lead to both wonderful and disastrous decisions.
Rated of 5
by Suzy . Cape Town Cutting for Stone
Thank you Dr Verghese for writing this superb book.
It has been a long while since I have been so engrossed in the characters,enthralled by the story line, whilst opening my eyes to a great many subjects that until now I was ignorant of.
Your use of the English language was extraordinarily beautiful even when discussing some of the rarer more disturbing medical facts.
It has been a month since I (sadly) finished Cutting for Stone and it still moves me, to the extent of writing this review, something I have not done with any other book!
I very much look forward to more work from you!
Rated of 5
by susan Cutting For Stone
I loved this book! I'm very interested in books with medical subjects. I found myself reading the first 100 or so pages with a world map by my side---it was a great geography and history lesson as I knew very little about that part of the world. When I finished the book I reread the prologue and first part again----it really tied it all together!!
Rated of 5
by K Honsharuk Cutting is Captivating
Well done...very well done. I'm exhausted...at 534 pages, I have been thoroughly engrossed in the lives of Marion and Shiva stone for close to a month. This book had tons of layers...lots of heart and love and warmth and heartbreak and squirm-inducing scenes. cutting for stone is the sort of book I love...crossing time and generations and taking me to places I've never been and will probably never go. and the title is great, too. even it contains tons of layers.
A few minor quibbles...I never felt as though Marion was a REAL character...he almost seemed too perfect. I found it hard to believe his pure and true love for Genet. Shiva was hard to know, too, and I thought some of the story got lost in the medical details. Also felt it dragged a bit during their childhoods. Other characters - Ghosh, Thomas Stone, Hema, sister Mary Joseph, even matron - were much better fleshed out than Marion and Shiva and had better "stories." still, cutting for stone is captivating. Read it.
Rated of 5
by Susan Cutting for Stone
A wonderful family saga that will keep book groups in discussion overtime with the richness of characters, history, place and time in this debut novel. A definite must for all public libraries.
Rated of 5
by Jerry Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
I liked this book! I especially admired how Verghese vividly described the primary characters' unvarnished gut feelings and urges: love and hate, unrequited love and betrayal, excessive self-centeredness, compassion toward others, necessary self-survival actions and the resulting guilt and fear and a willingness to give up one's life for the sake of another. I will definitely remember the humanness of these characters.
Much of the book takes place in Ethiopia. Verghese describes the political turmoil which took place in that country throughout much of the twentieth century. He also realistically describes how honorable people had to "play politics" with despots to protect themselves and their non-government organization (in this case a hospital for the poor) in a third-world country. I gained a greater appreciation for the work Doctors Without Borders, Catholic Charities and others are doing.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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Can an wiser, older narrator view the past with more wisdom than he might have possessed forty years earlier in the summer he was thirteen? Ordinary...
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U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing(May 16 2013) In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth...
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