People of the Book: A Novel | Geraldine Brooks | Mystery and history combined

People of the Book: A Novel | Geraldine Brooks | A Pleasant Surprise

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People of the Book...

	People of the Book: A Novel Geraldine Brooks Viking Adult, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 130 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Mystery and history combined

If you like historical fiction with a bit of mystery intertwined, you will like this. I won't repeat the plot, but I found it totally fascinating and found myself going back to reread parts -- the chapter headings were so helpful, I'm thinking the author anticipated readers rereading parts. The idea of taking art "backwards" isn't new, but it is still fascinating.

And, if you enjoy this title, check out the movie The Red Violin and another great book by Susan Vreeland Girl in Hyacinth Blue

A Pleasant Surprise

I first heard about the book on a radio program. I found the book at the library, recognized the title and decided to give it a shot. What good fortune it was! The best book I read this summer...well written, interesting, enlighten and couldn't put it down. The fiction is believable, facts accurate and story plausible. what more can you ask for in historical fiction!

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Beautiful

I saw this book at BN when it came out in December and would not have read it had I not read an article written by Geraldine Brooks published in "The New Yorker" on December 3, 2007, later that same week. The article tells the almost unbelievable but TRUE story of the Sarajevo Haggadah - how Dervis Efendi Korkut, a devout Muslim, saved the Haggadah from confiscation by the Nazis, how he and his wife Servet also saved Mira Papo, a Jewish girl, how he was later tried as a Nazi Sympathizer, how Mira later encountered Servet and leared of the pending trial but failed to testify on his behalf at that trial and then later redeemed herself by writing an account of his deeds that resulted in Dervis and Servet being declared Righteous Amonig Nations by the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous at Yad Vashem (yeah, this is a bad sentence). I keep a photocopy of the article with my copy of the book.

Having read the article, I bought the book. Given the known facts about the book and the amazing story about the people involved in its rescue from the Nazis, it was enjoyable to read a FICTIONAL account about how a Spanish Haggadah written in Hebrew but illuminated with Islamic ornamentation (Brooks points out that Jews, Christians and Muslims peacefully co-existed in Spain during a time known as the Convivencia) could travel from Morocco to Spain to Venice to Vienna, and ultimately resurface in the twice war-torn Sarajevo of our time. In a time where "Christians" and "Muslims" "hate" each other while equally "hating" the "Jews" it is refreshing to see just a glimmer of what we could all be and accomplish if we could see past the labels we put on each other.

If any of the negative reviews have you worried - read the article first if you can, then read the book.

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So-so

The modern characters are weak and the story doesn't stick together very well. But the historic dramas were quite intriguing. Fells like this book was written by two different authors.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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