People of the Book
By Geraldine Brooks
(Penguin Books, Paperback, 9780143115007, 400pp.)
Publication Date: December 30, 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Compact Disc, Hardcover, Compact Disc, MP3 CD, Compact Disc
Categories: Literary
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Selected by Indie Booksellers for the Spring/Summer '09 Reading Group ListThe "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.
Geraldine Brooks is the author of Year of Wonders and the nonfiction works Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Previously, Brooks was a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, stationed in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East. END
1. When Hanna implores Ozren to solicit a second opinion on Alia's condition, he becomes angry and tells her, "Not every story has a happy ending." To what extent do you believe that their perspectives on tragedy and death are cultural? To what extent are they personal?
"Less flash and more substance than The Da Vinci Code . . . 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."
- USA Today
"As full of heart and curiosity as it is intelligence and judgment."
-The Boston Globe
"Intelligent, thoughtful, gracefully written and original."
-Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
"Erudite but suspenseful . . . one of the most popular and successful works of fiction in the New Year."
-Alan Cheuse, NPR / "All Things Considered"
This book is on these lists:
LMW's Wish List by LMWI am reading by J. E. Knowles
Favourite Reads by wovenword
Francescahawthor's Wish List by francescahawthor
expand by lindymarie
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All lists >>
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Flight Behavior Barbara Kingsolver Harper |
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The Art Forger Barbara Shapiro Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill |
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Sweeth Tooth Ian McEwan Nan A. Talese |
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The Light Between Oceans ML Steadman Scribner |
