The premise was interesting; it certainly sparked an interest in the artifact itself. Unfortunately, Brooks took me through so many horrific episodes in the life of this one book she traces, I ended up resenting her for assaulting my mind with horrific imagery - torture, cruelty, abuse - I still can't shake many of them, and in her own way, she generated as much hatred as she recounted throughout history. The end result was so unpleasant, I doubt I'll trust her as an author in the future.

Great read...a little slow at time, but keeps your interest. ( )

People of the Book traces the history of an ornately illustrated haggadah (Jewish holy book), surviving five hundred years against the odds as its owners shelter it from the growing anti-Semitic movements in Europe from the 1400s onward. With every artifact or anomaly that the twentieth century conservationist discovers, there is a history to it from hundreds of years ago.

I am so torn about this book. The historical fiction sections are truly wonderful and impressive. A lot of research went into them, and every location and character is rich and believable. But the "modern" portions of the book, following the conservationist through her vapid and self-impressed narrative, fell really flat and dragged down a lot of the book's experience for me. But the historical chapters are so good! I wish Geraldine Brooks had chosen a different method to link them together. So, a book that I'm deeply ambivalent about, but still one worth reading. ( )

People of the Book is a collection of stories about men, women and children who played significant roles in the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a gorgeous illuminated manuscript that survived centuries of human folly to arrive in the hands of Hanna Heath, a book conservator, in 1996. Interwoven with Hanna's research into the tiny remnants she finds in the leaves of the book---a bit of quill, a fine white hair, a stain, an insect wing, a few grains of salt--are the tales of how the book came into being, how it was repeatedly rescued from those who would have destroyed it, intentionally or thoughtlessly. The book exists, and some of the facts of its history are known, but People of the Book is a novel, and most of it is purely the product of the author's rich imagination. The structure requires some concentration from the reader, as we travel across time and continents, meeting many fascinating characters whose lives we only sample, and whose fates are often left unresolved. It all works marvelously well...until the final modern installments of the story, where things turn a little bit Brown---Dan Brown. Many reviewers have objected to the dissonance of the modern bits. The story of Hanna Heath was really just binder, as far as I was concerned, so it didn't bother me overly much that the author short-sheeted it at the end. But I do think she could have done a much better job of tying things together. The "historical" stories will stick with me; the trials and tribulations of the book restorer herself will not. Overall, this was a more satisfying read than The Geographer's Library, which suffered from some of the same flaws in the hands of an author less skillful than Brooks. ( )

If you think you’ve had a hard day, you should run your story by the Sarajevo Haggadah. It has seen worse and Australian rare book expert, Hanna Heath can back up its claim. We first find Hanna in recently war torn Sarajevo in the mid nineties. She has been called away from her museum desk to verify the existence of one of the world’s rarest and most sought after treasures: a small, 15th century Spanish-crafted, Jewish prayer book.
Because Jewish prayer books at the time were not illuminated with the exquisite illustrations often found only in Christian texts, the Haggadda’s possession of such pictures lends to its importance, culturally. This unique interest point also allows for a great story line, intertwining the various fetes of escape the book has performed over the centuries following its creation. Brooks alternates between Hanna’s present day research and century deep segments backward in history, unearthing hypothetical tales of woe and despair as told by various items (a hair, a wine stain, a butterfly wing) found in the book. The inevitable questions of faith, censorship and genocide are woven well into the far-reaching historical escapades and are echoed, albeit to a lesser extent, in the modern day thread.
Over all, this was a fascinating romp through an otherwise gruesome history. It seemed to pick up steam a few chapters in, as I was clued into Hanna’s background with her family and thus better able to understand some of the character quirks, which were distracting before they were explained. The present day characters were well sketched but never fleshed out as well as they could have been. A great amount of depth was put into each of the historical characters in each vignette, though, which caught me surfing through the 1990’s chapters, anxious to pull up another flashback.
I did enjoy People of the Book, in the end, and it left me with a fairly sizable list of dates and places to research a bit deeper. I was told time and time again that the story was a sad one and while it has weepier moments, I would refer to it as poetic or endearing rather than tragic. ( )