We may need scorecards to keep up with all the people, places, and events we'll discover in People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.
Our poll shows that 90% of the book buddies who voted (an important distinction) want to read this one, even though it is newly published and available only in hardback. Here's the synopsis:
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 reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation.
In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city's rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah's extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna's investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
pages 1-90 ~ insect wing
Questions about Australian colloquialisms in the book
pages 91-189 ~ feathers, rose, wine
What do you think of Hanna's reasoning?
Will all humans someday be blended?
pages 191-272 ~ saltwater
pages 273-372 ~ white hair
