Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Not recommended. Whoa there is tons of sex in there! This book includes the coming-of-age of a set of twin boys and their female friend, and it lasts a long time. Don't start reading it because the storyline is fascinating and the medical informtaion intriguing. My favorite characters were Gosh and Hema, doctors and parents of the twins. Here are a few quotes about them:

The main character knows his father, Gosh, is terminally ill. “I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, “Seize the day! What matters is this moment!” Most of us can’t go back and make restitution. We can’t do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize. Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he’d taught me how to live.

A young boy has an operation and says of the operating room: “The place left a strong impression on the boy. It was otherworldly, hallowed ground, but still secular. The name “theater” was fitting.”

The main character comes across the original sculpture that his birth mother loved and had a print of over her desk. He had spent his childhood almost thinking of her as that sculpture. He is with his mother, Hema: "We lit candles. Hema fell to her knees, the flame throwing a flickering light on her face. Her lips moved. She believed in every kind of deity, and in reincarnation and resurrection-she knew no contradictions in the areas. How I admired her faith, her lack of self-consciousness—a Hindu lighting candles to a Carmelite nun in a Catholic church.

The main character finds something he’s been looking for for many years: “How like Ghosh this was! … Ghosh trusted me to do whatever it is I would choose to do [with the object]. That, too, is love. He’d been dead more than a quarter century and he was still teaching me about the trust that comes only from true love.”