Editorial 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 
Cached date: AWS Called=true
Customer Reviews
Most pleasant surprise 
2008-05-13
Ms. Brooks certainly know how to tell a story and to keep the reader in polite but nagging tension.
This biography of a book is a wonderful narrative, a story of passion and wonder. A rare case of history told as a novel (there is too much of this kind floating around, but rare exception do happen)where the moral is less than obvious, the narrative riveting and extremely well constructed, so that the Italian principle of "if not true is it well made up" not only applies, but is surpassed..
The Destruction of Culture of the Other 
2008-05-12
This book was fascinating to read and it expanded my horizons which is one of the things I treasure in a book. It did take some work to keep track of what was going on and when as it jumped back and forth. Brooks's story of the Sarajevo Haggadah's journey, both true and imagined, illustrates the power culture, art and literature have on people of the world. Some will give their lives to protect it while others are intent on destroying the culture of the "other", knowing what power it has.
"It would be something, to be back there, when the haggadah was still just some family's book, a thing to be used, before it became an exhibit locked up in a vitrine....."
"Oh, I don't know.....It's still doing what it was meant to do or it will be, as soon as it goes into the museum. It was made to teach, and it will continue to teach. And it might teach a lot more than just the Exodus story."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along:creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other' - it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists....same old, same old. It seems to me the book, at this point, bears witness to all that."
We can add the cultural treasures of Baghdad to that list.
Disappointing 
2008-05-10
I was anxious to read this book after hearing the author interviewed on NPR. After reading the book, I assumed the NPR interviewer had not read the book. It was very disappointing to me because it missed the opportunity to be a great book; instead, it was just another story (albeit with a fascinating theme) that was not as well-written as it could have been, and the flaws in the writing (or perhaps it was the editor's fault) were too severe to ignore. I hate it when a book sets you up and then lets you down with a thud, and that was exactly my experience when I approached the end of the book, which describes a preposterous 'solution' to a thorny problem that seemed more fabricated than likely.
Ambitious, Clever, Interesting and Moving 2008-05-09
I am impressed by Geraldine Brooks' most recent work; People of the Book. Brooks is also the author of Year of Wonders which is one of my favorites.
I thought Brooks did a wonderful job of creating very realistic characters throughout history and a sense of time and place for each character. She creates a story that revolves around the path of travel of a fifteenth century Hebrew manuscript.
I particularly enjoyed the contemporary character Hanna Heath who is responsible for the conservation of the priceless Haggadah in 1996. During the course of her work she discovers several interesting artifacts within the book itself. Through separate chapters the reader is taken back in time to where each item was incorporated into the book.
A very clever and thought provoking book. The characters Brooks creates experience a multitude of horrors. She illustrates many different ways that Anti-Semitism manifested itself throughout history. But she also shows us people who are willing to risk their lives to save another human being as well as preserve important historical artifacts.
This was a book club selection and it offers endless topics for discussion. It touches on love, hate, war, vice, anti-Semitism through the ages and describes many horrors throughout history as well as kindness and heroism.
I thought this was a very well done story, well written and cleverly executed. But I would have liked to learn a little bit more about any one of the character's stories. I'm not a big fan of the short story and I think this book is like several short stories that are connected. I love details and gut wrenching sorrow and I think this story could have had just a little bit more of both.
I also love when I read a work of fiction and I'm able to learn a little bit about something really interesting like antiquarian book conservation. Did you know that parchment was made of flesh? (I was an art student in college and I think I might have remembered that.) I also enjoyed reading how modern science is applied to unravel the mysteries of art restoration and conservation.
One of the things that I thought was so amazing is that this story was inspired by the true story of the Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. Many times as I was reading I was wishing there were pictures of the silver clasps and the various illustrations.
*Spoiler* sort of*
And I was happy to learn that Geraldine Brooks was able to see the real Sarajevo Haggadah.
Lyrical and Hypnotizing- a beautiful story 2008-04-29
I was first captured by the main character, Hannah Heath, but I found myself being even more captivated by some of the minor characters as the history of the Haggadah goes back in time to Venice, Seville, etc. I was enchanted by the slowly unfolding mystery and the creative way that Geraldine Brooks ties the history of the "people of the book" together over a 400-some year span.
Better than "March" 2008-04-28
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
Annoying Main Character 
2008-04-27
The main character of the book is "Hanna". If you like a character who is impressed with herself and won't let the reader forget it, you'll like this book. Example: Hanna's favorite phrase is "... when I was at Harvard..." Not: "..when I was studying.." or "..when I was a grad student..." or whatever. After the tenth "Harvard" reminder, it gets a bit tedious.
If you don't like that kind of character, then just skip this book.
An excellent intertwining of tales 2008-04-22
The most profound effect that this book had on me was to make me realize just how much is tied to inanimate objects. I dearly love going to museums and though I occasionally do wonder what life was like for the person who fashioned that ancient goblet or who wore that suit of armor, I have never found myself reflecting on it as profoundly as I did after reading this book. Brooks did a wonderful job of instilling in me, as a reader, a sense of how a seemingly innocuous object as an ancient, illuminated book can bear witness to centuries of human drama. The book masterfully recreated the sense of urgency that exists in everyday life while showing that everyday life is so fleeting and that one's time on the planet is so short as to be merely a thread in the tapestry that history has woven.
The book opens in 1996, with Hanna, a book restorer and expert on ancient manuscripts who has been asked to examine and make repairs to the Sarajevo haggadah, an ancient book that is something akin to a Jewish book of hours. While restoring the book, Hanna finds an insect wing, a dark stain, some salt crystals, and a white hair. She uses these objects in an attempt to trace the history of the book.
It is at this point that People of the Book really becomes a wonder. Brooks does a masterful job of creating a contemporary drama--that of Hanna's quest and events in her own personal life--that is interwoven with a series of historical dramas. This book is a story within a story within a story and it serves as a reminder of how history tends to loop back on itself. Tied to each of the four pieces of evidence that Hanna has found in the book is a story that tells one small part of the tale of the haggadah's creation and journey and each of these stories takes us further back in time.
This is a book so vivid and rich that I find it difficult to describe. Brooks has a mastery of words and though the locations and the eras she describes are all vastly different, what stands out is her depictions of humanity in all its greatness and flaws. Hanna's own journey could have made for a good novel in and of itself but Brooks gives it more impact by casting it against the tales of all those who have been touched by the book long before Hanna.
What is really remarkable about the novel is how it highlights the sameness of the struggles of its Jewish protagonists. As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same and this is certainly the argument that this novel makes. Brooks charts a course of history that shows how, time and again, people of the Jewish faith have been made victims because of that faith, how one day Jews live peacefully alongside Christians and Muslims and how they next they are being persecuted by those very neighbors. Though the novel suggests that the survival of the book itself is extraordinary, what is truly extraordinary is the actions of those who ensure the survival of the book. While the chance to behold such an ancient text is certainly a marvel, what is even more marvelous is to try to imagine the lives of those who saw to it that we could, one day, view that ancient text in a museum or in a library. This novel just proves how wonderful is Brooks's mind, that her experiences with an ancient text allowed her thoughts to take flight and to produce this sterling work of literature.
Wonderful Book 2008-04-20
People of the Book is a great story and wonderfully written. Each chapter alternates between the present and the past. The chapters of "the past" go further and further back in history and discusses the trial and tribulations of the book that the protaganist has restored. During the restoration, she finds artifacts that have been inadvertantly left in the book. Each chapter reads as its own short story discussing how the item got in the book and who owned the book at the time. I worried that it would be tough to follow, but it wasn't.
I highly recomend it.
Somewhat disappointing 2008-04-19
I hate to sound like an egghead, but I thought this book would be much more literary in nature. The story certainly pulled you through with interest, but I was anticipating something with more depth, especially since it had some basis in reality. The theme of the intertwined lives of people of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faiths was certainly worth exploring, and this fabled hagaddah certainly made a worthy vehicle for that tale. But, something was missing. It all felt too superficial.
It's certainly not a bad book. But I wanted something more.
