Is there an audiobook of Cutting for Stone?

Yes. Cutting for Stone has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Sunil Malhotra.

How long is the Cutting for Stone audiobook?

The Cutting for Stone audiobook runs 23 hr 54 min.

Is Cutting for Stone on Kindle Unlimited?

No. Cutting for Stone was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 12, 2026.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese book cover for the Book of the Day historical fiction book review

Our score

4.6/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to Cutting for Stone free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

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EDITION PUBLISHEDJanuary 2010

Genres

Fiction Historical Fiction Coming Of Age

Themes

Twinhood, family, and inheritanceAbandonment and forgivenessMedicine as vocation and callingExile and the meaning of home

Cutting for Stone

Name: Cutting for Stone
Price: 12.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone tells the story of twin brothers born of a secret union between a nun and a surgeon, orphaned at birth and raised in an Ethiopian mission hospital. It's a big, old-fashioned saga of medicine, family, betrayal, and exile, written by a doctor who makes the operating room sing.

The Review

Our take

Marion and Shiva Stone are born conjoined at the head in a Catholic mission hospital in Addis Ababa, their mother — a nun — dying in the delivery, their father — the surgeon who should have saved her — fleeing in grief and shame. From that operatic opening, Verghese spins a coming-of-age saga that spans continents and decades, following Marion (who narrates) and his uncannily gifted brother as they grow up among the doctors and patients of the hospital they call Missing. It's a novel unembarrassed by scale and sentiment, the kind of immersive, character-stuffed story that asks you to move in and stay a while.

Verghese is himself a physician, and it shows in the best way. The medicine here is vivid and exact — surgeries described with a craftsman's love, the textures of disease and healing rendered without squeamishness or jargon — and the hospital becomes a world unto itself, peopled with characters you come to know like family: the brilliant, gruff internist; the devoted surgeon Hema; the cook, the nurses, the patients who return. For readers who love a sense of place, the Ethiopia of these pages, caught in a time of political turmoil and looming revolution, is rendered with real affection and specificity. The book is at its strongest when it simply lives inside Missing and lets you feel the rhythms of a working hospital and the makeshift family that runs it.

The emotional core is the bond between the twins — a closeness so total it's almost a single self — and the betrayal that eventually fractures it. Marion's love for a childhood companion, his complicated feelings about the father who abandoned him, his eventual flight to America and a medical career in a very different kind of hospital: Verghese braids these threads into a story about inheritance, the literal and figurative kind, and about how the wounds of one generation get stitched into the next. There's a satisfying circularity to how the early mysteries pay off, the surgeon's abandonment finally answered in the closing movement.

It is, admittedly, a maximalist book, and not every reader will want that much of it. Verghese loves a digression, the prose can grow lush to the point of overripe, and the plot eventually leans on coincidences large enough that you have to take them on faith. The middle stretch sprawls, and a leaner novel lurks somewhere inside this generous one. But the sprawl is also the pleasure; this is a book to sink into rather than race through, and its accumulating richness is the reward for patience.

Why you should read

Readers who love immersive, large-canvas family sagas
Anyone fascinated by medicine and the world of doctors
Fans of strong sense of place and richly drawn casts
Book clubs ready for a long, rewarding, discussable read

What to expect

A decades-spanning saga from Ethiopia to America
Vivid, expert medical detail throughout
Lush, maximalist prose and a sprawling middle
A few large coincidences and a satisfying full-circle ending

For readers who love a sweeping, deeply felt family saga with a strong sense of place and a beating medical heart, Cutting for Stone delivers in full. It rewards the time it asks for, builds to a genuinely moving conclusion, and gives book clubs plenty to discuss — about family and forgiveness, about the body and what we owe each other. Ambitious, absorbing, and warmly human.

Reviewed by Avery · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.6/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to Cutting for Stone free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Cutting for Stone?: Yes. Cutting for Stone has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Sunil Malhotra.
Listen to Cutting for Stone free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Cutting for Stone audiobook?: The Cutting for Stone audiobook runs 23 hr 54 min.
Is Cutting for Stone on Kindle Unlimited?: No. Cutting for Stone was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 12, 2026.
How much does Cutting for Stone cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $12.99, Paperback $10.45, Hardcover $3.55. Prices as of August 27, 2026 at 3:21 AM EDT and may change.

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Common questions

What is Cutting for Stone about?: Marion and Shiva Stone are born conjoined at the head in a Catholic mission hospital in Addis Ababa, their mother — a nun — dying in the delivery, their father — the surgeon who should have saved her — fleeing in grief and shame. From that operatic opening, Verghese spins a coming-of-age saga that…
Is Cutting for Stone worth reading?: We scored Cutting for Stone 4.6 out of 5. Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone tells the story of twin brothers born of a secret union between a nun and a surgeon, orphaned at birth and raised in an Ethiopian mission hospital. It's a big, old-fashioned saga of medicine, family, betrayal, and exile, written by a doctor…