People of the Book

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK; Geraldine Brooks; New York: Viking, 2008; 372pp. Fiction

The people of Ms. Brooks' book are Muslims, Christians, and Jews, as one might have guessed, but the book (besides The Book) is the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated version of the seder prayer dating from the 15th century. Hanna Heath, a book conservator from Australia, is called in by the United Nations to prepare the Haggadah for display after it has been saved from the bombing of Sarajevo by a resourceful museum curator. What she finds in the book--a butterfly's wing, a stain of mingled wine and blood, a saltwater stain, a single white hair--leads the reader into the true stories of the book. Layer by layer Ms. Brooks tells the stories of the creation and travels of the Haggadah, from the two Muslims who risked all to save it from the Nazis, to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, to the unlikely creator of the pictures in Spain. People of the Book is rich in culture, ceremony, history, art, personality, and love, a must-read.

LW