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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780670018215
ISBN number: 067001821X
Label: Viking Adult
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: January 01, 2008
Publishing house: Viking Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 534
Studio: Viking Adult
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning 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 binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s 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 city’s 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 Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna’s 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.
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
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Rated by buyers 
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This book takes you on a journey as you discover the history of an ancient Jewish prayer book. The author skillfully weaves the tales of everyone who has touched the book and impacted it's history while relating the story of religious conflict, persecution and times of cooperation between Muslims, Jews and Christians throughout the Centuries. This is all done while telling the story of the young woman who is sent to restore the book.
Well written; a book that I truly enjoyed!
Rated by buyers -
Geraldine Brooks did it again! This book should capture the reader from the very very first line. My book group reviewed People of the Book recently and gave it high ratings; everyone took something different away from the story. Not only will the reader discover what a book conservationist is, but the importance of maintaining & preserving books throughout history. The main character is like a detective who can take a grain of salt found in the binding of an ancient prayer book, research it, then discover the exact location where it came from. From that tiny grain of salt, she weaves a whole story that connects to the subsequent discovered particle - until she pieces together the entire background of the prayer book. The final piece of the puzzle links together why and how the book came to be found in a Sarajevo library. The book highlights the common thread among all religions that many lose sight of in today's world.
Rated by buyers -
I very first heard about the book on a radio program. I found the book at the library, recognized the title and decided to give it a shot. What good fortune it was! The best book I read this summer...well written, interesting, enlighten and couldn't put it down. The fiction is believable, facts accurate and story plausible. what more can you ask for in historical fiction!
Rated by buyers -
I saw this book at BN when it came out in December and would not have read it had I not read an article written by Geraldine Brooks published in "The New Yorker" on December 3, 2007, later that same week. The article tells the almost unbelievable but TRUE story of the Sarajevo Haggadah - how Dervis Efendi Korkut, a devout Muslim, saved the Haggadah from confiscation by the Nazis, how he and his wife Servet also saved Mira Papo, a Jewish girl, how he was later tried as a Nazi Sympathizer, how Mira later encountered Servet and leared of the pending trial but failed to testify on his behalf at that trial and then later redeemed herself by writing an account of his deeds that resulted in Dervis and Servet being declared Righteous Amonig Nations by the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous at Yad Vashem (yeah, this is a bad sentence). I keep a photocopy of the article with my copy of the book.
Having read the article, I bought the book. Given the known facts about the book and the amazing story about the people involved in its rescue from the Nazis, it was enjoyable to read a FICTIONAL account about how a Spanish Haggadah written in Hebrew but illuminated with Islamic ornamentation (Brooks points out that Jews, Christians and Muslims peacefully co-existed in Spain during a time known as the Convivencia) could travel from Morocco to Spain to Venice to Vienna, and ultimately resurface in the twice war-torn Sarajevo of our time. In a time where "Christians" and "Muslims" "hate" each other while equally "hating" the "Jews" it is refreshing to see just a glimmer of what we could all be and accomplish if we could see past the labels we put on each other.
If any of the negative reviews have you worried - read the article very first if you can, then read the book.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is pure shlock. After having read and enjoyed her previous book, March, I expected much better. The "clues" provided in the manuscript lead to obvious but absurdly far-fetched conclusions by the extremely annoying and self-satisfied Aussie narrator. She manages to be both extremely sorry for herself and convinced of her own righteousness and brilliance at the same time. The other characters are stereotypical and predictable, and they all succumb to cliched but lurid Jewish fates. Don't waste your money on this potboiler.
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