Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese, an Ethiopian-born Indian-American physician, tells the saga of Marion and Shiva Stone, conjoined twins born at Missing, a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, to an Indian Carmelite nun and a British surgeon. Their mother dies in childbirth and their father vanishes, so the separated boys are raised by two doctors at the hospital, both from Madras. Close to the point of uncanny and both drawn to medicine, the brothers grow up while Ethiopia edges toward revolution. Marion, one of the twins, tells the story. The title refers to the Hippocratic oath's warning against cutting for stones, and the novel spent two years as a best seller.

It is among the novels on a list of every book Barack Obama recommended during his presidency.