By: Geraldine Brooks Publisher: Viking Adult Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Viking Adult Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 384 Publication Date: January 01, 2008
Amazon.com: Amazon Best of the Month, January 2008: One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey. In the hands of Hanna Heath, an impassioned rare-book expert restoring the manuscript in 1996 Sarajevo, it yields clues to its guardians and whereabouts: an insect wing, a wine stain, salt crystals, and a white hair. While readers experience crucial moments in the book's history through a series of fascinating, fleshed-out short stories, Hanna pursues its secrets scientifically, and finds that some interests will still risk everything in the name of protecting this treasure. A complex love story, thrilling mystery, vivid history lesson, and celebration of the enduring power of ideas, People of the Book will surely be hailed as one of the best of 2008. --Mari Malcolm
Product Description: From the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war
In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient bindingan insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hairshe begins to unlock the books mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the books journey from its salvation back to its creation.
In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the citys rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadahs extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hannas investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love.
Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author.
Uneven and Anti-Catholic I loved Brooks's Year of Wonders, but this book is only sometimes riveting, more often slow. Most unfortunately, this is the first anti-Catholic novel I've read since I tried PD James about 20 years ago. So it was amusing when the main character in People of the Book says on page 264, "Having read rather too many P. D. James novels, I'd decided . . . " Alas! You surely have, Ms Brooks! I'm not Catholic myself, but without balance this book teeters towards untruth.
An excellent book This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. The author uses the real Sarajevo Haggadah as starting point for a fascinating fictional account of how it was so beautifully illustrated, how it came to be written, and how it was taken from place to place all over Europe over many centuries, and weaves that all together with the personal life of the book conservator who becomes involved with the Haggadah. The totally unexpected ending is amazing! I liked the book so much that I bought the quite expensive taped version for a visually handicapped friend.
Fascinating! I couldn't stop reading this book. It was like a jig-saw puzzle with each piece just fitting perfectly. The history combined with the fiction made a powerful story. Highly recommended!
vignettes in a book I am still in the middle of the book but so far am not particularly inspired. It is ok but not as wonderful as it was touted to be in all its reviews. Moves slow and has pretty stock characters. Would have liked a bit more depth in each vignette.
Dan Brown Lite Disappointing even for a fluff novel. The Wikipedia article on the Sarajevo Haggadah is a more interesting read. Historical fiction needs either a quality retelling of history or a quality story to get by, and this book offers neither. There's precious little known of the Sarajevo Haggadah's existence, so Brooks imagines a series of events throughout its existence interwoven with a bit of modern-day drama. But she apparently went for the Dan Brown approach by inventing physical details of the book itself, throwing off the balance between history and fiction. The pattern of revealing a detail and immediately following it with a chapter set in the past is too contrived and trite even for mindless beach reading. It's certainly interesting to wonder about this book's journey through the years, but Brooks' imagined history offers little to recommend it.
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