Cutting for Stone - October CC Book Club Selection

[Mary13]

<p>Summer is drawing to a close and the next thing you know, autumn leaves will be swirling. It’s time to get ready for our fall book selection, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.</p>

<p>Per the Seattle Times: “Absorbing, exhilarating. . . . If you’re hungry for an epic . . . open the covers of Cutting for Stone, [then] don’t expect to do much else.”</p>

<p>It’s available at Amazon for $8.69 ($7.99 in Kindle format). </p>

<p>On another thread, shyparentalunit mentioned that the audible version is excellent. Here’s a brief review of the audiobook, which includes a short description of the novel:</p>

<p>

From AudioFile
Dr. Marion Stone, the Ethiopian-born, half-Indian protagonist and narrator of CUTTING FOR STONE, at one point refers to his adopted mother’s voice as both lilting and singsong. The same can be said of Sunil Malhotra’s expert reading of this audiobook, a moving story about twin brothers born of an Indian Catholic nun and an expatriate English doctor. Malhotra slips into the skin of Marion, a moody, bookish boy and later a talented surgeon, who, against a background of African poverty, war, and medical breakthroughs, is oddly detached but always compassionate. Malhotra’s ease with the sometimes-complex medical terminology and the broad cast of Indian, African, English, and even some Bronx-accented characters makes for a fascinating listening experience.

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<p>Cutting for Stone is a bit longer than our usual selections (it’s 688 pages), so you might want to allow yourself a little extra time for reading. Discussion will begin October 1st. Please join us!</p>

[bookiemom]

<p>This is an absolutely wonderful book. I have it sitting right here by my computer because I am going to read it again someday. He is a superb writer. I have heard him interviewed on NPR and PBS and he is just so interesting.</p>

<p>Even if you don’t participate in the book club discussion, the book is well worth reading.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>^ I hope “someday” is very soon and that you join us in October. Thanks for the good review–I’m looking forward to starting the book!</p>

[dragonmom]

<p>It is a wonderful book. I am already regretting lending out my copy because I would like to re-read.</p>

[musmom2]

<p>Agree with posts #2 and 4. It is a terrific read, and very well written. LONG, but it goes quickly! Hope everyone enjoys. Maybe I will have to skim thru again!</p>

[1012mom]

<p>Love this book. Have bought three additional copies for friends this year.</p>

[Singersmom07]

<p>Never got the last one finished - overtaken by events. Maybe I will have better luck with this one.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>I’m just bumping this up because it’s September 1st and I thought I’d remind folks that the Cutting for Stone discussion begins in one month, on October 1st. I hope everyone is enjoying (or will soon be enjoying) the book!</p>

[dragonmom]

<p>I am a book-a-holic. This is one that I will grab back from my friend because it seems like it will be a classic.
I just keep re-playing the situations in my mind.</p>

[psychmom]

<p>Sounds like an interesting book…I’m in!</p>

[Lady_Lorna]

<p>I’ve just finished reading this book and loved it. I hope to participate in my first CC Book Club discussion come October 1st.</p>

[woody]

<p>Mary13- I’m sorry I missed early books and the lively discussions! Really enjoying Cutting for Stone and I loved Let the Great World Spin. I was a HS senior in NYC at the time of the book’s events and the book was spot on. I called my closest HS friends and got them on the bandwagon as well. Thanks!</p>

[Mom0f3]

<p>I am reading this one now (on my kindle). What a beautiful written and fascinating book. Can’t wait for the discussion!</p>

[Mary13]

<p>^ MomOf3, I’m doing the same and enjoying it very much.</p>

<p>Welcome psychmom, woody and Lady Lorna! Glad you’ll be joining us.!</p>

[CBBBlinker]

<p>Also reading it on my Kindle. Supposed to have it finished for Sunday afternoon’s “Book on the Beach” discussion, but I’m only at 13% … May not make it for Sunday, but will definitely be done by October 1!</p>

[BUandBC82]

<p>I just finished reading Cutting for Stone. Excellent book!</p>

[Mom0f3]

<p>I’m about half way through. This is one of the best books I’ve read in years–one of those I’ll be sad to finish, because it’s just so good. The writing is so evocative–not only are the characters finely drawn, but the descriptions of smells, sights, and music really make you feel like you are living at that place and time. At one point, his description of the Ethiopian song “Tizita” actually sent me to Youtube to listen to it! I’m looking forward to the cc discussion (and will recommend it to my IRL book club as well).</p>

[Mary13]

<p>It’s October 1st and I feel like I’ve just emerged from another world, having read nothing but Cutting for Stone for days. I loved the novel. I wonder, if I were a doctor, would I love it more or less? Maybe some of you out there in the medical profession can tell me how much of it resonates with you.</p>

<p>As always, I’ll start by posting a Reading Guide, which you can peruse or ignore, as you choose. I’ll take a stab at the first question, or at least part of it:</p>

<p>

1. Abraham Verghese has said that his ambition in writing Cutting for Stone was to “tell a great story, an old-fashioned, truth-telling story.” In what ways is Cutting for Stone an old-fashioned story — and what does it share with the great novels of the nineteenth century? What essential human truths does it convey?</p>

<p>[ReadingGroupGuides.com</a> - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese](<a href=“http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_c/cutting_for_stone1.asp]ReadingGroupGuides.com”>http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_c/cutting_for_stone1.asp)

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<p>Like many of the great novels of the past, Cutting for Stone is a family saga, spanning decades and continents. It’s got it all: love, death, mystery, religion, betrayal, murder, redemption—you name it. Probably, to be perfectly honest, it has too much. But I think as a reader you just go with it. You know by the first chapter—with its storm-tossed seas, typhus epidemic, troubled doctor and nun in peril—that you are in for a heck of a ride. </p>

<p>I think that Cutting for Stone also embraces many classic literary themes. I looked online (sorry, too many years out of school to remember on my own) and found these listed as some of the most common; they certainly apply to Cutting for Stone:</p>

<p>The Noble Sacrifice
The Loss of Innocence
The Fall From Grace
The Capriciousness of Fate</p>

<p>I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say!</p>

[bookiemom]

<p>I also loved this book and thought it one of the best I’ve read in years as well. It does touch on the themes Mary mentioned. The book reminded me of Dickens with all the amazing coincidences. I did think there were a few too many of those.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>I’ve actually just started reading it. :o
Amazon kept recommending it to me ( I mostly read books in bed on my ipod)- but my IRL book group had been reading * so * many books set in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iran/Iraq, that when I saw the last name I shuddered- and overlooked it, until I happened to read something that reminded me I had * already read * one of his books fifteen years ago & loved it, ** My Own Country<a href=“no%20wonder%20I%20couldn’t%20remember%20what%20I%20read%20fifteen%20years%20ago-%20I%20can’t%20remember%20what%20I%20read%205%20years%20ago”>/b</a> :o</p>

<p>from wiki

My Own Country traces the story of a young infectious-disease physician in the mid-80s in Johnson City, Tennessee, who began to treat patients with a then unknown disease. Because of the seemingly un-ending influx of patients with the same symptoms and for whom there was, as yet, no effective treatment, Dr. Verghese became, of necessity, the town’s AIDS expert. As much as he gave to his patients in terms of caring and empathetic treatment, he gained back in terms of understanding and lasting lessons in how to heal when there is no cure. Often, he was the only one at his patients’ bedside when family and friends, fearful of or in denial about the disease stayed away. From the sorrow of so many deaths and ugly displays of prejudice, from his giving of so much time and comfort, and the unraveling of his own domestic life and from the seeming hopelessness of the situation came a book of such richness and humanity that the story is uplifting and hopeful even as it plumbs the depths of human sadness.</p>

<p>The book was adapted for a 1998 TV movie.

with Naveen Andrews :D</p>