People of the Book: Library Edition

Brooks, Geraldine

ISBN 10: 1433212692 ISBN 13: 9781433212697

Publisher: Blackstone Pub, 2008

Synopsis

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March, this is 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 listener is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation.

Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of both sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity and is an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author.

About this title

Review

'An irresistible subject, given urgency by its timeliness and poignancy by its paradoxicality: for the novel is based on the true story of an ancient Jewish codex saved from the fire by a Muslim librarian. Her performance will satisfy many readers.'

Review

'These stories have a raw and visceral power. The book is full of historical detail.'

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackstone Pub
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1433212692
• ISBN 13: 9781433212697
• Binding: Audio CD