People of the Book

As part of the challenge to read more Australian novels by female authors, I finally read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. I have read A Year of Wonders before, and never really knew why everyone raved about Geraldine Brooks. Yes, her writing was fine, but they weren't outstanding. Having read People of the Book, now I know what all the fuss is about. This book is superb!

The historial education in this novel was what most appealed to me. The amount of research that Geraldine Brooks did for this novel is phenomenal. The information about religious history has been presented without an agenda, and has really opened my eyes to many things that I was oblivious of.
   People of the Book has been compared to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. I think the Da Vinci Code is a pale comparison.
   People of the Book won the Australian Book Industry Award in 2008.
   The main story running through this novel is of a book conservator who is responsible for restoring the Sarajevo Haggadah (which is a real book). The story alternates between Hanna (the conservator) in her investigations, and the (fictional) stories of the book's origin and its various survivals through times of upheaval for Jews in Europe.
   I loved this book - please read it, if you haven't already.