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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
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People of the Book (2008)

by Geraldine Brooks

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
6,164342586 (3.94)621
2008 (61) 2009 (47) Australia (85) Australian (39) book club (58) book conservation (86) books (175) books about books (133) Bosnia (117) fiction (882) Haggadah (159) historical (69) historical fiction (459) history (126) Jewish (65) Jewish History (58) Jews (82) Judaism (218) literature (43) mystery (83) novel (112) read (61) read in 2008 (45) read in 2009 (51) religion (95) Sarajevo (158) Spain (67) to-read (103) Venice (43) war (42)
  1. 132
    The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (BookshelfMonstrosity)
  2. 50
    The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean (mrstreme)
    mrstreme: Similar history of how museum workers scrambled to save pieces of art during wartime
  3. 30
    Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland (whymaggiemay)
    whymaggiemay: Both well written, and both follow an art object from end to beginning, through the hands of those who once owned it.
  4. 20
    Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (Johanna11)
  5. 20
    A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell (Ciruelo)
  6. 10
    The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman (VivianeoftheLake)
  7. 10
    Fugitive Blue by Claire Thomas (merry10)
    merry10: An imagined history of a 15th Century panel.
  8. 00
    The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park (Smiler69)
  9. 00
    The Books of Rachel by Joel Gross (RWListen)
    RWListen: Epic saga tracing the path of an object connected to those of Jewish descent.
  10. 22
    Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (CatyM)
    CatyM: A very different style of book from a very different genre, but an interesting commentary on the corruption/misuse of religious faith which complements this book's treatment of the same theme.
  11. 00
    A Delightful Compendium of Consolation by Burton L. Visotzky (Osbaldistone)
  12. 00
    The Thief of Time by John Boyne (Booksloth)
  13. 00
    The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus by Owen Gingerich (oregonobsessionz)
    oregonobsessionz: This one may be a stretch, but anyone who read People of the Book for its historic and "books on books" aspects would probably enjoy The Book Nobody Read, a nonfiction account of an astronomer who seeks to account for all of the first and second editions of Copernicus' de Revolutionibus.… (more)
  14. 01
    The Book of God and Physics: A Novel of the Voynich Mystery by Enrique Joven (Osbaldistone)
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English (329)  Dutch (4)  Spanish (3)  German (1)  Finnish (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  All languages (339)
Showing 1-5 of 329 (next | show all)
If you love history, art and books look no further! Masterfully contrived narrative that won't let you go. A few characterisation problems in parts, but I was forgiving. ( )
  Angela.Kingston | May 1, 2013 |
A book about a book. A religious book that survived hundreds of years. Some interesting twists along the way. The first Geraldine Brooks book I've read. I might try another. ( )
  Neale | Apr 30, 2013 |

This is one of the best novels I’ve read in years, and I recommend it whole-heartedly. It’s especially good for those fascinated by European or Jewish history. The central character is Hanna Heath, who is engaged in restoring an old and famous Haggadah. As she finds tiny clues to the book’s history, the author expands these into stories. She takes the Haggadah from the 20th century back to the 15th, from war in Sarajevo to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. The three European religions – Jewish, Christian and Muslim – are major characters in this book, sometimes at each other’s throats and sometimes finding vital ways to live together. Through all this, the reader meets breathtaking characters, and the writing is consistently good.

( )
  astrologerjenny | Apr 24, 2013 |
This is a marvelous book. I really enjoyed this author’s Year of Wonders and I think I liked this book at least as much. This is skillful and enthralling storytelling that’s also thought provoking.

This book is one of the most skillful renderings of a book that goes back and forth in time that I’ve ever read. Ditto for the writing of a historical fiction account, especially one that has part of its history in the very recent past.

This is a historical fiction story about the Sarajevo Haggadah. (A Haggadah is a Jewish religious text that sets out the order of the Passover Seder. During Pesach, it is read every year on the first night, and in some traditions on the second night as well, for the Seder service.)

The story goes from present to past, back to present, to farther and farther in the past several times, each time returning to present day, and ending back again in the present.

I was afraid this storytelling technique wouldn’t appeal to me or that I’d have a difficult time remembering everything and everyone, but the author manages to tell each story flawlessly and she’s able to perfectly connect all the stories. I cared about so many of the characters in each historical period and place. I enjoyed every single sub-story, and I became emotionally involved with each one.

Right away, as soon as I opened the book, I was happy because there’s a map. A map is on the inside front and back covers. Oh, how I love maps in books! This one is wonderful because it follows the route the Hagggadah in the story took: from Seville in 1480 to Sarajevo in the twentieth century. There are a few drawings on the map of how things would have looked in these places/times too.

I particularly enjoyed the story of present day Hanna’s relationship with her mother, but I hate to single out that one because there were so many wonderful characters and relationships. I was extremely touched by one of the main characters from the 1480 portion of the story.

On page 320 of the book this quote: “The point – that diverse cultures influence and enrich one another…” sums up a lot of what happens during the course of the 500 years of the story. While this influence was shown not always to be from benign relationships, I found it particularly interesting and heartwarming that positive relationships between Jews and Muslims were shown throughout these 500 years. If there are any villains at all, it is the Christian inquisitors and rulers during the late 1400s to the early 1600s, but Christian, Muslim, and Jewish characters from all periods are shown as admirable, and often as having friendly and mutually beneficial relationships with one another.

Both laudable and monstrous human characteristics are shown. There are people who risk their lives to save people and books; there is torture, slavery, and other atrocities as well.

As someone who loves books, and who appreciates old books, I found this fictional history of a book fascinating. I was also absorbed both by the inside look at the craft of book conservation work and by the detective work that can be involved as part of it.

On a personal note: I’ve been an Olympics junkie since my teens and clearly remember the Sarajevo Olympics, including the interviews at the time about how everyone in the area was getting along so well together, and then what happened there in the years following, so those parts of the story seemed very familiar to me.

Historical fiction stories often torment me because I always want to know what’s real and what is fiction. As I was finishing up reading this, I planned to research what was history and what was fictional in this tale. What I very much appreciated about this book is that the author gives the reader all this information in the afterword; she does so in a very few pages but does so comprehensively.

An added note: My book club meeting to discuss this book isn't for over a month, but I'm not concerned about it remembering enough; this is a memorable book. ( )
3 vote Lisa2013 | Apr 18, 2013 |
Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in 1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the U.N. to report on its condition. Hanna through her thrilling first encounter with the beautifully illustrated codex, discovers tiny signs-a white hair, an insect wing, missing clasps, a drop of salt, a wine stain-that will help her to discover its provenance.

Along with the book she also meets its savior, a Muslim librarian named Karaman. Their romance offers both predictable pleasures and genuine surprises, as does the other main relationship in Hanna's life: her fraught connection with her mother.

In the other strand of the narrative we learn, moving backward through time, how the codex came to be lost and found, and made. From the opening section, set in Sarajevo in 1940, to the final section, set in Seville in 1480, the reader discovers the struggles of a young girl to escape the Nazis, a duel of wits between an inquisitor and a rabbi living in the Venice ghetto, and a girl's passionate relationship with her mistress in a harem.

This novel covers the long history of anti-Semitism and shows how the Haggadah has brought together Jews, Christians and Muslims.

A complex plot; often confusing. Needs a mature reader. ( )
  dalzan | Apr 18, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 329 (next | show all)
While peering through a microscope at a rime of salt crystals on the manuscript of the Haggadah, Hanna reflects that “the gold beaters, the stone grinders, the scribes, the binders” are “the people I feel most comfortable with. Sometimes in the quiet these people speak to me.” Though the reader’s sense of Hanna’s relationship with the Haggadah rarely deepens to such a level, Geraldine Brooks’s certainly has.
 
Brooks' novel meticulously, lovingly amalgamates mystery and history with the personal story of its heroine, rare-book expert and conservator Hanna Heath.
 
If Brooks becomes the new patron saint of booksellers, she deserves it. The stories of the Sarajevo Haggadah, both factual and fictional, are stirring testaments to the people of many faiths who risked all to save this priceless work.
added by DieFledermaus | editUSA Today, Susan Kelly (Jan 9, 2008)
 

» Add other authors (20 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Geraldine Brooksprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Wren, EdwinaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
There, where one burns books one in the end, burns men. 
-- Heinrich Heine
Dedication
For the librarians
First words
I might as well say, right from the jump: it wasn't my usual kind of job.
Quotations
The words stuck to his tongue like...the ashes that had fallen in a warm rain after the last book burning.
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Wikipedia in English (3)

Book description
Hanna Heath, an Australian rare book expert, has been offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, 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 discovers a series of tiny artificacts in its ancient binding -- an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair -- she begins to unlock the book's mysteries, ushering in its exquisite and atmospheric past, from its salvation back to its creation through centuries of exile and war.
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No descriptions found.

In 1996, Hanna Heath, a young Australian book conservator is called to analyze the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless six-hundred-year-old Jewish prayer book that has been salvaged from a destroyed Bosnian library. When Hanna discovers a series of artifacts in the centuries' old, she unwittingly exposes an international cover up.… (more)

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