People of the Book

A Novel

By: Geraldine Brooks

Narrated by: Edwina Wren

Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

DUBLIN Literary Award winner

Short-listed, Harold U. Ribalow Prize

Indies Choice Book Award nominee

Library of Vermont Literary Award Finalist

Mary Shelly Award winner

Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction

School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated prayer book through centuries of war, destruction, theft, loss, and love.

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. Called "a tour de force"by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in 15th-century Spain.

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.

©2008 Geraldine Brooks (P)2008 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“There’s romance between Brooks and the world, and her writing is as full of heart and curiosity as it is intelligence and judgement.”—The Boston Globe

“Intelligent, thoughtful, gracefully written, and original . . . Brooks tells a believable and engaging story.”—The Washington Post

“Intense, gripping . . . 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. . . . It’s a brilliant, innately suspenseful structure, and one that allows Brooks to show off her remarkable aptitude for assimilating research and conveying a wide range of settings. Also on full display is her keen sense of dramatic pacing.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Fantastic Piece of Literature

I was expecting to read a rather cheesy Passover story and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was nothing of the sort. An excellent storyline with fantastic vignettes, convincingly real dialogue, and authentic accents. The narrator was good enough that I could not tell which accent was her native tongue. Overall, a top-rate product.

Great story, not a great narrator

This is a wonderful book -- well-written and a real page-turner. But I thought that the narrator was weak. She tried to do a variety of accents for the characters, who represented a number of different nationalities. The main character's Australian accent was okay, but the rest all sounded like The Count on Sesame Street no matter where they were from . Dreadful. A straight reading with NO attempt at accents would have been so much less distracting.

Wonderful story of many textures

Wonderful story of many textures. Good combination of technical and artistry for the 500 year history of the book

Excellent

I loved the way this story was tied together! It is the story of an ancient book and all the people who have preserved it. It is a story of religion and art. It is also a kind of mystery as the main character investigates and uncovers the secrets that the book contains.

Interesting characters and story

I know very little about the "Haggadah", but learned a great deal about the treatment
of Jewish people during the Spanish Inquistion and during the seige of Sarajevo
in the 90;s. Really enjoyed listening to this book, told thru the eyes of a contemporary scholar of ancient Jewish texts.

A must read for all historical fiction lovers

Highly recommend! An incredible narrator with so many accents! I will read and listen to this book again in the future, though, I could've done without the last Mission Impossible chapter.

A Book to Remember....

This complex tale represents the blood shed by many to preserve their own histories and thus their own humanity. The cultural diffusion is apparent in the book as Brooks uses her unifying element, the Sarajevo Haggadah, to give us a glimpse of the Jewish along with the Muslim struggles for intellectual freedom. She emphasizes that this universal need joins us all as one people.

Amazing history novel

This was such an interesting read. I was impressed with the storytelling of the history of this book, based on very small discoveries.
It brought me a new perspective on my own Jewish history.

POTB Tells Breathtaking Story of Lost Holy book

Loved, loved, loved this book. Tracing the provenance thru hundreds of years is incredably interesting, well written & well read with wonderfully done accentds by reader.

Would have found verble chapter #s helpful. The story is already coplicated & running chapters together w/o announcing the chapter makes for more confusion.

So many People of the Book

Excellent story that is both a mystery and "history". This book by Geraldine Brooks moves both back and forth in time giving us the believable backgrounds of the "so many people" involved in it's creation and protection and the discoverer of many of it's secrets. Edwina Wren does a most credible job with the male and female voices from the countries through which this book made it's 500 year journey.