The Covenant of Water (2023) by Abraham Verghese well-deserves the title of (my personal) most anticipated book of the year. As soon as I heard that Verghese, author of the beautiful, difficult book Cutting for Stone, had a new book coming out, this one set predominantly in India, I got a little giddy. Verghese’s career as a surgeon (he is faculty at Stanford’s School of Medicine, after all) blends with his incredibly artful prose to make moving, fascinating reads. Even after many months of anticipation, The Covenant of Water wowed me, moved me, and left me feeling connected to something bigger and more beautiful than any single life.