People of the Book (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People of the Book: A novel by Geraldine Brooks that focuses on imagined history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest surviving Jewish illuminated texts. ^[1] The novel has been compared to Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code, with USA Today calling it an erudite version of the Da Vinci Code while other reviewers have noted that it is slower paced than Brown's book.^[1] ^[2] ^[3] The novel tells the story of Hanna Heath, who is responsible for restoring the Haggadah. The novel alternates between sections set in the present day with Heath and other sections showing the history of the Haggadah ^[4]

Told in reverse chronological order, it follows the book backward in time from war-torn Sarajevo back through the centuries as it travels across Europe, from the hands of one owner to another -- while it follows clues like missing notebook clasps, preserved butterfly remnants, and other stains and spots over the years which are all eventually explained and play a part in the history of the book.