People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I know that it's only the beginning of April, but People of the Book is by far the best book that I've read this year.  My list of Top 10 All-Time Favorites will now have to be a list of Top 11.

Library books, as we all know, get passed from hand to hand.  And on occassion (more often than I'd appreciate), I'll turn a page and some unexpected, unidentifiable substance will be staring back at me.  I would care not to know what most of these items are, but the obvious food stains, crumbs, water damage, coffee, and beach sand have made their presence known in many a library book.  These little pieces of evidence left behind by previous readers have sometimes caused me to wonder what they were eating or doing while this book was in their hands.  What caused this person to spill his or her coffee?  What beach is this sand from?  Were these Ritz crackers or Saltines?  And the question that usually leaves me cringing:  Is that what I think it is?

Of course, Geraldine Brooks doesn't answer any of my questions in her novel.  However, she does take us through the controversial existence of an extremely important and rare book in which particles of past lives have been left within its pages and bindings offering insight into its creators and owners.

As Hana Heath analyzes a rare, illuminated Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, she finds an insect's wing, a wine stain, and a saltwater stain within its pages along with evidence that the book at one point contained a set of clasps.  Each of these items holds the story behind the existence of the Sarajevo Haggadah and the people who had possessed it dating as far back as 1480 on the coast of Spain.  This is a novel not just about war and the struggle for religious freedoms and acceptance, but it is a novel about survival, the risks we are willing to take to survive, and the interconnectivity of all people.

Had I not had such a busy week, I could have devoured this book in a single sitting.  Inspired by the true Sarajevo Haggadah, each historical flashback is written with such care to detail for its time, place, and characters that I wanted to believe that this was the true story behind this Hebrew codex.  The amount of research that had to have gone into this novel is astounding.  I read it with a true appreciation for the lives affected by these wars, circumstances, and outcomes.