My book club chose The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese as our May book club selection. It weighs in at 715 pages, and I have loved every one so far. To be a writer, you have to be a reader. And I mean, a professional-level reader. Not professional in the sense of critiquing or tearing apart, but simply reading. Savoring. Enjoying. Delighting at the mastery a good writer has with words.
You won't see a "review" of The Convenant of Water from me, because when I read Verghese's work, I honestly don't care about plot, form, structure, or characters. I am too enthralled by his words. Some of his lines stop me in my tracks. I keep a pencil with me always when I read his work so that I can mark the lines that I stop on, reading them over and over. A few examples from The Covenant of Water:
"Secrecy lives in the same rooms as loneliness." p.122
"Sooner or later, she must sit down to the meal of consequences." p. 164
"Hands are a manifestation of the divine.... you must use them." p. 264
Honestly, I don't know what I am doing here, blogging, when I have more pages to enjoy.