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The Covenant of Water
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
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The Covenant of Water
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Summary
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 Water is 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.
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What listeners say about The Covenant of Water
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 13-10-23
A beautiful, deeply moving saga
I was a apprehensive when purchasing this audiobook because of its length and I because I didn’t think I’d enjoy this genre of writing. I was wrong, of course. The book was absolutely unputdownable. A must read!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Sahar Zand
- 17-08-23
A true masterpiece
Ive listened to this book twice and I can’t get enough! Make sure to listen to Oprah’s 6 part podcast series on this. The author’s words and experience of writing this will blow your mind
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 04-12-23
This was wonderful experience
It was charming, worth the time and so articulately put together. The author read this with love, I felt every experience.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Krisztina
- 24-08-23
Slow but interesting
Very well written but it is very very slow and hard to listen the last 3-4 hours.
Narration could have been better.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Kari Mutu
- 15-01-24
A Masterpiece!
Beautifully written. An incredible story and cast of characters. Worth every bit of the 700 pages.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Sarah
- 20-12-23
brilliant read!
this was recommended by Oprahs book club. fascinating and an absolute beautiful piece of work.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-04-24
His beautiful way with words
I loved the language, the descriptive passages and the incredible depiction of the joys and heartbreaks of three generations
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-04-24
the covenant of water a beautiful book
I enjoyed every part of the book from beginning to end I was transported as if by magic from Glasgow to India and it was read so well I could visualise all the diffrent characters perfectly thank you so much
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 27-03-24
Do not miss this book…
This warm story is filled with true human feeling and insight. So much to learn about the time in India. It felt as if I was part of the family and not a stranger from a different culture.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Sally Goldman
- 08-08-23
Beautifully told tale of family journeys
I absolutely loved reading a hard copy of Cutting for Stone many years ago, so was delighted to see a new Verghese book available on Audible. Set mostly in India, it follows a family over several generations and connects them to a doctor from England. Verghese is himself a doctor and I found all the medical details fascinating, particularly as my own mother had an acoustic neuroma. The setting, initially in colonial India and later after independence, was also an interesting angle.
I found it a bit confusing initially, but that may have been due to me not sitting down and listening for a concentrated period, as well as there being many characters, all with names unfamiliar to me. I almost felt I needed to have a written list of names to which to refer. But once I got into the story and felt it was going somewhere, I was hooked. Verghese describes Indian life and customs so beautifully and I found myself doing extra chores around the house just to listen to another chapter. I did not realise, until the acknowledgements at the end, that this novel is based on his own family, that one of the central characters is his mother.
Verghese's narration is so-so. I usually really enjoy an author reading his/her own work, as there is an increased passion and understanding of the text, but I would say his reading is not up to the standard of his writing. Several words were mispronounced (he obviously understands their correct use, but not how to say them, and these were not just American options) and I thought he had only one voice and inflection for all the women.
So his narration and the slightly slow start lost this book a star, but otherwise I highly recommend spending a credit on this great listen.
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5 people found this helpful