People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I didn't actually read this book, I listened to it as an Audio-Book, and I think I liked it better for the listening. Perhaps I would have got a little lost at times, trying to read through the twists and turns that this amazing story took me. To follow the path of the Haggadah, an ancient Jewish religious book, back in time to it's creation and it's journey through time to the present day, was a sort of a book/paper/people forensic story, and it had me totally hooked. The book is based on the actual finding of a similar book in Sarajevo in the 1990's.

Loved it.
Easily moved into position as one of my favorite books of all time.

Very glad I read this.

I really wanted to love this book, however I failed to connect with any of the characters. Probably wasn't in the right frame of mind to read this either, the relentless persecution just depressed me. I wanted something good to happen for a change.

I was completely engrossed in this book until the last 100 pages or so. I liked the structure of a contemporary story framing the imagined history of the Sarajevo haggadah, and how in some ways the contemporary story was quite similar to the past stories. I liked the way Brooks was able to imagine the unknown (and probably impossible to know) history into details of people's lives–people who lived and suffered through disaster while they were focused on ordinary concerns. The end of the book was disappointing, though. The contemporary story took a turn for the unnecessarily dramatic and started seeming more like a Hollywood thriller than a story about real people. Still, I am now a confirmed fan of Geraldine Brooks.