Book #5: People of the Book

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I really enjoyed this book. It centers on the character of Dr. Hanna Heath, a book conservationist, who is called in to Sarajevo in 1996 to help preserve an ancient Jewish manuscript, a haggadah, that has been recovered from a recently bombed library.

Heath begins her work and discovers several mysterious items in the book itself - clues about where it has been since 1480, when it was written. The plot jumps back and forth between the "present" time (1996 for Heath) and the different time periods associated with the items in the book.

I really liked the story, but the information concerning Jewish and Muslim customs was fascinating, too.