Showing results for "People of the Book Geraldine Brooks" in All Categories

In 1996, Hanna Heath, a rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna discovers a series of artifacts in its ancient binding, she begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation.

This ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in 15th-century Spain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock its deep mysteries.

Brooks discusses her latest historical novel with award-winning journalist John Hockenberry, the host of WNYC's new morning show, The Takeaway. The book, inspired by a real rare illuminated manuscript, imagines its life from its creation in medieval Seville to the present, through the lives of the people who come into contact with the book. Actress Rita Wolf will perform an excerpt.