People of the Book

Nov 10, Minutes Buy. Jan 01, Minutes Buy. Dec 30, Pages. Jan 01, Pages. Nov 10, Minutes. Jan 01, Minutes. 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. 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.

From the Trade Paperback edition. Praise for People of the Book: Brooks tells a believable and engaging story. People of the Book , like her Pulitzer Prize-winning previous novel March , is a tour de force that delivers a reverberating lesson gleaned from history. Also on full display is her keen sense of dramatic pacing. An ambitious book, a pleasure to read, and wholly successful in its attempt to give a sense of how miraculous, unlikely and ultimately binding the history of objects can be.

Literary Fiction Historical Fiction Category: Literary Fiction Historical Fiction Audiobooks. Buy the Audiobook Download: Apple Audible downpour eMusic audiobooks. Add to Cart Add to Cart. If the book only centered on Heath's quest in present day, it would still merit a five-star book of intrigue. How fortunate that this is not the case. Brooks intersperses Heath's quest to discover the haggadah's and her own history with chapters on each of the haggadah's stops over the last years.

The pages are filled with vivid language each describing an epoch of the haggadah's illustrious history. Of course being fiction, Brooks ties up both Hanna's and the haggadah's loose ends with a relative happy ending. I grew more and more mesmerized with the books twists and turns, and the pages read quickly in the book's second half. Where would Heath's quest lead next? Read on and discover the haggadah's path through history. As someone who rarely reads fiction, I am delighted with my choice of both book and author as the one to lead me back to the world of storytelling.

Brooks' writing is first rate and I look forward to reading many more of her novels. I would highly recommend this book to anyone in search of a quality historical fiction novel. View all 28 comments. Jul 18, Lyn rated it really liked it. An exceptional novel about a rare book conservator from Australia who researches the Sarajevo Haggadda, an ancient Jewish prayer book. The modern conservators narrative binds the vignettes together. A none too subtle vehicle to highlight the interwoven histories of Christians, Jews and Muslims - the People of the Book - the novel is also an allegory about learning itself and An exceptional novel about a rare book conservator from Australia who researches the Sarajevo Haggadda, an ancient Jewish prayer book.

A none too subtle vehicle to highlight the interwoven histories of Christians, Jews and Muslims - the People of the Book - the novel is also an allegory about learning itself and people's struggles to keep the flame of wisdom alight. Original, well researched and provocative, a reader will enjoy the textured characterizations and the personality brimming in each historical sketch.

View all 4 comments. Jan 04, Hannah Greendale rated it really liked it Shelves: A Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain has been saved from the ruins of a bombed library. Hanna Heath, who specializes in the conservation of medieval documents, is hired to repair and preserve the ancient manuscript. Tiny artifacts found inside the manuscript lead Hanna on a quest to discover how the rare manuscript was created and who risked everything to ensure its safety for five hundred years.

The author capitalizes on Hanna's passion for her profession. Her work on the manu A Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain has been saved from the ruins of a bombed library. Her work on the manuscript is described with such alluring detail that the reader cannot help but experience the same hushed reverence as she does.

When Hanna looks at the manuscript, she sees more than paper and ink. She sees the story behind the book's creation; she senses the hands of every person who made it, held it, cherished it. What others see as blemishes or trash - a red stain, a salt crystal, a white hair lost in the folds of the binding - Hanna sees as clues to the people of the book. Hanna's story alone is strong enough to carry the reader through a captivating journey, but what makes this book so beguiling is the integration of multiple stories from various other characters spanning from to All of the varied narratives are masterfully woven together for optimal plot pacing.

In a way, the book reads like a collection of short stories, but a common thread - the ancient manuscript - ties everything together into one beautiful tapestry. While People of the Book doesn't offer the same richness of prose as the author's other novels, there are moments where dazzling language emerges. Often this language is employed to give an intimate, artful description of the manuscript itself, such that People of the Book sometimes feels like a love letter to the act of slowly crafting a masterpiece: That beautiful autumnal flower, Crocus sativus Linnaeous , each with just three tiny precious sigmas, had been a prized luxury then and remained one, still.

Other times, the writing is vivid and immediate: Shells hitting the walls. It was left for me to fill in the blanks. I'd been in enough museum basements to imagine how it was; how every shell burst that shook the building must have sent a rain of plaster falling over the precious things, and over him, too, into his eyes as he crouched in the dark, hands shaking, striking match after match to see what he was doing.

Fundamental themes woven throughout the book are as provocative and meaningful today as they were five hundred years ago: It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what unites us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox. View all 8 comments. Feb 06, Leanna rated it liked it. I try to avoid all things popular e. The book is good, but it is not call-up-all-my-friends- or readers -and-recommend-i I try to avoid all things popular e.

The book is good, but it is not call-up-all-my-friends- or readers -and-recommend-it good. Although better written than Da Vinci but, come on, a phonebook is better written than Da Vinci , People lacks the plot, mystery, and pizzazz that made Da Vinci a blockbuster. Hyacinth follows the provenance of a Vermeer painting. People follows the provenance of the Sarajevo Haggadah. As such, the book is divided into several sections. As the title suggests, it is not the book that is interesting so much as what happens in the lives of those people attached to it.

These sections are the strongest and most interesting in the book. However, for some reason I cannot fathom, some parts are written in first person and some in third. This twist seems to serve little purpose other than to distract and annoy the reader. Hanna Heath is a book conservator hired to work on the Haggadah. She finds clues in the book—an insect, a stain, a hair—that reveal its history.

She has apprenticed around the globe, is well published and highly regarded in her field. How did Hanna and her cohorts pack in so much and become so successful in so few years?

What does the People of the Book mean?

I was far more interested in what happens when she is out of the picture. People of the Book is an okay read, but I see no need to trample your friends and neighbors to secure a copy. Read it if you have the time and inclination. View all 11 comments. The story of an extraordinary book and the people who surround it. And I did not enjoy it. My reaction to this one was a huge surprise. I think the problem is fairly simple- never connected with the main character. I loved Anna from Year of Wonders. I couldn't stand Hanna.

The shelf-life of shadows

The small details of her work that she found so absorbing, I didn't enjoy. I didn't like how she treated people sometimes. I thought she see The story of an extraordinary book and the people who surround it. I thought she seemed rather arrogant. I also didn't like how the timelines bounced around from character to character.

I was listening to People of the Book as an audiobook. Without being able to look back and check, I found myself getting confused when I stopped in the middle of a passage and picked it up again after a work day. Brook's writing is just fine. Again, I can't believe I didn't like this. Highly recommend Year of Wonders. I give this a solid pass. View all 12 comments. I love it when old stories sound right for their time, and Geraldine Brooks does that so well.

This novel was inspired by the discovery of the real Sarajevo Haggadah , a book more than years old, so Brooks had a lot of ground to cover and a lot of voices to invent. Her central character Hanna Heath, a rare book expert says about herself: I can figure out who they were, or how they worked. Who might have penned the text of the haggadah the Jewish ritual which is read during the Passover Seder meal? Who might have painted the illustrations? Who is the black woman in a painting, and why is she there?

Who managed to save this Jewish treasure from the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis, and the numerous attempts to eradicate all traces of Jewish culture?

Review: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks | Books | The Guardian

Hanna says about the paper she plans to write: I wanted to give a sense of the people of the book, the different hands that had made it, used it, protected it. I wanted it to be a gripping narrative, even suspenseful. We hold our breath as this small book changes hands on its precarious journey through the centuries.

All are in desperately dangerous situations. In , Dr Hanna Heath PhD doctor , an expert Australian conservator of rare books, is invited to Sarajevo to inspect a recently discovered haggadah [Brooks does not capitalise it, incidentally]. It just turned up in the museum, and the unusual illustrations have roused particular interest, as images were generally forbidden in Jewish tradition.

And there is humour, too. She is a driven, single-minded woman, whose child was a puzzling nuisance. Hanna stands up to mum and uncovers her own history—where she came from and how—and she finds a whole new world of support and respect. She tries to put the haggadah story behind her and sets out to catalogue and preserve Aboriginal rock art in situ diverting dripping water away from it, that sort of thing , working as fast as possible in the tropical heat in Arnhem Land, with little communication and limited time before The Wet turns the dirt tracks to impassable mud.

So little is known, so little is protected. As her colleague says: It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. All believable, all fascinating. View all 16 comments. Nov 10, Katie rated it liked it. There's nothing bad about this but there's nothing exciting about it either. I'd describe it as assembly line fiction. A novel that is designed to be a crowd pleaser. It never strays from formulaic commercial boundaries. The story is well-plotted and researched.

The prose is professional but never inspired. The characters are on the bland side, each one with a predictable problematical relationship. The author has won the Pulitzer prize so I was expecting something much braver and more literary.

I reached page and realised I would much rather be reading Cormac McCarthy. View all 24 comments. Apr 28, Mary rated it it was amazing. What a fantastic story. Don't be put off by the first bit when you meet Hanna, the main character: You end up loving her with a compassion that this author can magically instill in you for all of her characters, of which there are many.

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The book also spans many centuries and traverses many continents, so it's a bit complex. This account of the history of a little book takes you through the darkest hours of human history, including the Inquisition What a fantastic story. This account of the history of a little book takes you through the darkest hours of human history, including the Inquisition and the Holocaust, but you end up feeling somehow so uplifted by the story.

Brooks has a way of taking dire, nasty topics the bubonic plague and civil war are the settings of her other two novels and turning them into parables that portray our deep goodness and strength and grace in the face of unimaginable horror and hardhship.

I just think she is an amazingly gifted writer. But not for the faint-hearted. View all 3 comments. What I do is me, for that I came Still building this review This is grand book. From beginning to the end. I don't usually like books on war situations but this book received so many good comments and ratings from Goodreads I decided to go for it. I did not regret it. Each chapter is a time jump, to and fro in time. And starts with a quote, like this one, page in my book: Brooks seamlessly moves from the miniscule - the tiny specks - to examine in human terms the larger events from the thirteenth century and into the twenty-first: A sensitive story, crossing borders, crossing time lines Realistic and poetic at the same time.

Will be back with more, probably in the weekend. I wanted to give a sense of the people of the book, the different hands that had made it, used it, protected it View all 19 comments. Jul 01, Jennifer rated it really liked it Shelves: Geraldine Brook's latest is a treat for us librarians as well as dedicated to us in the front! As usual, Brooks' prose is both incredibly readable and laudably literary, and her theme that the love of knowledge and books crosses all historical and cultural boundaries is well illustrated through her complex Geraldine Brook's latest is a treat for us librarians as well as dedicated to us in the front!

As usual, Brooks' prose is both incredibly readable and laudably literary, and her theme that the love of knowledge and books crosses all historical and cultural boundaries is well illustrated through her complex characterizations and real-life-inspired plot. In the end, all of us who love, teach, and support literacy and learning are "People of the Book. Jan 17, Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing. I could have sworn I wrote a review. I read this book the first week it was released View all 9 comments. May 05, Sue rated it really liked it Shelves: This is a wonderful story of a magical book, an illuminated manuscript begun in the 15th century and found in Sarajevo after the Bosnian War, a Jewish manuscript rescued by a Muslim librarian who could not bear to see such a treasure be destroyed.

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Based on some fact and the author's talented recreation, we see the history of this religious piece over the years as some seek to destroy it and others work to save or embellish it. We move backward in time from the modern time to the Nazi era, to 19th This is a wonderful story of a magical book, an illuminated manuscript begun in the 15th century and found in Sarajevo after the Bosnian War, a Jewish manuscript rescued by a Muslim librarian who could not bear to see such a treasure be destroyed.

We move backward in time from the modern time to the Nazi era, to 19th century Europe, to the days of the Inquisition. I found I learned some history here while following the book. For this I thank Ms Brooks. I definitely will have to try others of her books. View all 6 comments. Jan 11, Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing Shelves: This is a marvelous book. 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 This is a marvelous book. 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 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. 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: I was extremely touched by one of the main characters from the portion of the story. On page of the book this quote: 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 years.

If there are any villains at all, it is the Christian inquisitors and rulers during the late s to the early s, 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: 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. 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. May 05, Rachel rated it really liked it. I buy a lot of books. It's sort of sad, given that I am supposed to be budgeting and have completely okay, almost completely stopped buying clothes, but books call to me.

So, anyway, I went into this book planning to love it. I even caved and bought the hardbound, so anxious was I to start. But it isn't that. Honestly, I was expecting more, and maybe expecting too much? I did not read Brooks' first book - the one that won the Pulitzer - "March. Instead of wrapping me up in a story that evolves over space and time, Brooks tries to wrap up each little story into too neat a package, which always left me wanting more. I suppose the fact that I never wanted the book to end, and, more specifically, mourned the end of each segment at the same time that I yearned for the next, should tell me something about how much I actually did like the book.

Even so, I disappointed at the end. When Brooks is not tying very neat little bows, she is spinning stories around very neat little cliches, which will leave you feeling like you have read this book before. Others may find great enjoyment in the love stories and family dramas carefully interspersed by Brooks, but I craved to read more of filmy butterfly wings captured on a laboratory slide, of ancient ink-making techniques, or the mysteries that accompany preservation. View all 5 comments. May 28, Lbsantini rated it it was ok.

I only got through the first 50 pages on this one. I'll try her novel The Wonder Years, but I found the narrator just too whipsmart. Also, there was a line or two that made me groan outloud. When Hannah is sitting on a plane next to someone who removes mines, she says to herself something like: Also, she "seduces" a guy by licking his fingers at a restaurant.

All I could think was, "Who really does that? Mar 13, Julie Christine rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: I adored this novel! It contained all the elements of my favorite contemporary fiction: With this, Brooks moves into my favorite authors column. Jan 09, Stacy LeVine rated it it was ok.

Brooks accomplishes nothing by opting for repugnant main characters. As to the historical fiction, I appreciate what Brooks is trying to do. Some of what she comes up with is interesting enough. But the section set in Seville during La Convivencia is virtually unreadable. And the more vivid the mind movies fostered, the better the book. That said, I vehemently recommend the article that inspired the novel, which Brooks published in the December issue of The New Yorker. Brooks is, by trade, a reporter and a good one.

But she is not as yet a novelist. Perhaps she should stick to journalism and leave fiction to those more adept with character and evocative language. Nov 06, Denae rated it it was amazing Shelves: People of the Book is a stunningly beautiful book about another stunningly beautiful book. It fictionalizes the true story of the Sarajevo Haggadah , a unique, year old version of a book read at Jewish Passover Seders.

It illustrates the story of how and why Passover came to be. People of the Book looks at the fascinating story of the Haggadah's travels through the years and creates a story from them.