Abraham Verghese

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION 'One of the best books I've read in my entire life. It's epic. It's transportive . . . It was unputdownable!' Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century a twelve-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch - known as Big Ammachi - will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship. A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humour, deep emotion and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

An Oprah's Book Club Selection

The Covenant of Water

Covenant of Water

Paul Kalanithi

When Breath Becomes Air

A young doctor of eastern Tennessee describes the town's first introduction to the AIDS virus, which preceded a disturbing epidemic and introduced the doctor to many unique people

A Doctor's Story

My Own Country

A touching true account of a physician's friendship with a medical student explains how their relationship develops through games of tennis, deepens, and then is threatened by unexpected tragedy. Reprint.

The Tennis Partner

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 and 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.

Cutting for Stone

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret “One of the best books I’ve read in my entire life. It’s epic. It’s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!” — Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com The Covenant of Wateris the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club)

International Bestseller A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel — 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 at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth 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. Yet it will be love, not politics — their passion for the same woman — that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him — nearly destroying him — Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him. An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.

Joseph Olshan

Mahlon Johnson

A physician describes how he went from surgeon to patient when a slip of a scalpel during an autopsy led to HIV infection and offers a personal account of his fierce battle with the AIDS virus

Working on a Miracle

Khi hơi thở hóa thinh không

Travancore, Costa di Malabar, 1900. Una ragazzina di dodici anni cerca di prendere sonno tra le braccia di sua madre. Domani lascerà la casa in cui è cresciuta per andare sposa all’uomo cui è stata promessa. Colui che diventerà suo marito, il nuovo padrone della sua vita, ha trent’anni di piú, è vedovo, con un figlio ancora bambino. La piccola sposa va incontro al suo futuro cosí come è stato deciso da altri, come hanno fatto sua madre e la madre di sua madre prima di lei. «Il giorno piú brutto nella vita di una ragazza è il giorno del matrimonio. Poi, se Dio vuole, le cose migliorano» le viene detto. Il vedovo è un buon partito, come loro è parte di quell’antichissima comunità di cristiani convertiti da san Tommaso diciotto secoli prima, e per qualche strano motivo accetta una moglie senza una rupia di dote, anche se si mormora che la sua stirpe sia afflitta da una strana maledizione: in ogni generazione almeno una persona muore affogata. E in quello che oggi si chiama Kerala l’acqua è ovunque, plasma la terra in una trina di laghi e lagune, accompagna col suo canto sommesso le esistenze, si nutre dei monsoni, collega tutto nel tempo e nello spazio. La sposa viene accolta con affetto nella nuova casa e, nell’arco della sua lunga, straordinaria vita, conosce la gioia di un grande amore, patisce il dolore di infinite perdite, assiste a cambiamenti epocali. La sua famiglia si espanderà e si ritirerà con le nascite e le morti. Finché arriverà una nipote che porterà il suo nome, studierà medicina e giungerà a una scoperta sconvolgente. Evocazione luminosa di un’India in cammino verso la sua trasformazione politica e culturale, celebrazione di un popolo antico immerso in una natura ancora prepotente, Il patto dell’acqua è il nuovo romanzo di Abraham Verghese, «che espone il lettore a una bellezza cui altrimenti non potrebbe accedere» (The New York Times); un libro-mondo di straordinaria potenza che custodisce tutti gli eventi preziosi dell’esperienza umana. «Una prosa sorretta da una profonda e coerente architettura morale dell’animo umano. Un romanzo grandioso, spettacolare, coinvolgente». The New York Times «Con maestria, Verghese plasma le vite dei suoi protagonisti a colpi di guerre, monsoni, carestie, pestilenze e inondazioni su una scena grandiosa come quella del Dottor Živago, pur senza perdere lo sguardo intimo sulle piccole cose». The Washington Post «Abraham Verghese racconta la saga di una famiglia attraverso un secolo di cambiamenti epocali, senza mai dimenticare che l’amore e la gentilezza d’animo possono vincere sulla violenza». Los Angeles Times «Mentre leggevo Il patto dell’acqua ogni tanto dovevo fermarmi e ricordarmi di respirare». Oprah Winfrey

Il patto dell'acqua

Shiva și Marion, gemeni identici, vin pe lume din relația secretă a unei călugărițe indiene cu un chirurg englez, într-un spital al unei misiuni din Etiopia. Uniți la nivelul capului, cei doi sunt separați în ultimul moment. Rămași orfani de mamă în ziua în care se nasc și părăsiți de tată în aceeași zi, cei doi copii împărtășesc o legătură supranaturală și aceeași pasiune pentru medicină și se maturizează pe fondul tulburărilor politice care zguduie Etiopia în anii 1960–1970. Dragostea pentru Genet, fiica doicii lor, și implicarea acesteia în lupta pentru eliberarea Eritreei îi despart în cele din urmă, iar Marion, proaspăt absolvent al școlii de medicină, este nevoit să fugă în America. Destinul, prin intermediul aceleiași Genet, îi readuce împreună pe cei doi frați în împrejurări dramatice, care refac într-un mod special legătura cu tatăl dispărut. Saga gemenilor Shiva și Marion Stone traversează continente și generații, desfășurându-se în Africa și în America de-a lungul a cinci decenii, și conturează o poveste despre dragoste și trădare, despre compasiune și vindecare, despre exil și apartenență. Magistral... Verghese creionează un tablou viu al locurilor, al practicilor medicale și al conflictelor interioare ale personajelor sale.

Să tai în piatră vie

Een jongen van Indiaas-Engelse afkomst groeit op in Ethiopië en wordt arts.

De heelmeesters

An unforgettable, illuminating story of how men live and how they survive, from Abraham Verghese, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Cutting for Stone and The Covenant of Water, an Oprah's Book Club Pick. “Heartbreaking. . . . Indelible and haunting, [The Tennis Partner] is an elegy to friendship found, and an ode to a good friend lost.”—The Boston Globe When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. There he meets David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addiction, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other. This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, the dark beast from David’s past emerges once again—and almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened as David spirals out of control.

A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss

Book Club to Go Bag 72

A masterly debut novel, visceral in its power, heartbreaking in its tenderness. Transporting the reader from the 1940s to the present, from a convent in India to a cargo ship bound for the Yemen, from a tiny operating theatre in Ethiopia to a hospital in the Bronx, Cutting for Stone is a thrilling epic of conjoined twins, doctors and patients, temptation and redemption, home and exile--and a riveting family story, irresistibly charged with strange happenings, humour and pathos, that grabs you from its harrowing opening and never lets go.Marion and Shiva Stone are twin sons of a secret union between an Indian nun and a British surgeon at 'Missing' hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the brothers come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics-their passion for the same woman-that tears them apart and forces Marion to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as a surgical intern at an underfunded, overcrowded hospital.When the past catches up with him, Marion must trust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him, and the brother who betrayed him. Cutting for Stone is both an unforgettable story of lives cut in half and a gripping evocation of the power, intimacy, danger and curious beauty of the ancient art that is at its heart.

A Novel

This fiction is set in Nedumanoor, in south Kerala, an imaginary village. The time scale of the story spans from the 1930’s to the next millennium with three generations in focus. Kunj, a school dropout was deeply in love with a beautiful girl, Marria. However, Marria was not smitten by him. Read how Kunj managed to marry her and from then on how Marria became a “living dowry” for his family. Several people and social factors controlled how life proceeded for Marria in that society. The story has exploitation of women, skewed romances, a wrestling match, marriage brokering, school teachers, Church pastors, and so on. All these are woven to make an interesting reading and an insight into the rural life that once existed in Kerala, the state which has the sobriquet “God’s own country”. Do these happen even today? It is for the readers’ to judge.

Abraham Verghese

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