StarAstrologer - Books : People of the Book: A Novel
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780143115007
ISBN: 0143115006
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: December 30, 2008
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release Date: December 30, 2008
Sales Rank: 1750
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The “complex and moving”(The New Yorker) novel by Pulitzer Prize–winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war
Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called “a tour de force”by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century S pain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.
Amazon.com Review:
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
It was difficult to decide what was more disappointing: the poor narrative or the incredibly poor knowledge of the history in general, and of the region Ms. Brooks writes about in her "People of the Book". Since a lot has been said about the former in other reviews, I will comment on the latter.
On p. 67 you will find a hilarious sentence ending with "...,yet following the forms of Petrarchan sonnets that had been carried inland from Diocletian's court on the Dalmatian coast." Diocletian ... Read More
Rating:  -
The Sarajevo Haggadah of Pesach, one of the most mysterious and interesting Haggadot in the world, is at the center of Geraldine Brooks' novel "People of the Book".
Haggadah, which means "telling" is a rabbinic exegesis the Jewish liberation from Egypt, as told in the Exodus book of the Torah, fulfilling the scriptural commandment to Jews to "tell your son" about this crucial event. It is used to set the order of the Passover Seder. The Sarajevo Haggadah, the oldest of the Sephardic Passover Haggadot, ... Read More
Rating:  -
The interweaving was skilled, although the characters, at times fell flat, and the events predictable.
I also prefer a lighter touch. The best example of tackling a serious subject without a professorial POV is "Yiddishe Mamas: The Truth About the Jewish Mother." It is written by Marnie Winston-Macauley, author of the spectacular calendar series, A Little Joy, A Little Oy (2009).
Although one is fiction, while the other non-fiction, the tonal difference is worth looking at.A Little ... Read More
Rating: -
Our book club selected this book and I didn't know anything about it when I bought it. I enjoyed it very much. It is full of interesting characters and the way the story is woven together was very well done. I even learned a little history along the way!
Rating: -
This is the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a real book that has a mysterious 500-year history. When Geraldine Brooks learned about it and was intrigued by the mysteries it held, she did what most writers would do; she made it up. This novel goes back and forth between present and past, showing the bits of evidence that a contemporary book conservator finds in its pages and then shows the reader where those things came from; a butterfly wing, a wine stain, a white cat hair, etc. I thought it dragged a little in ... Read More
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