People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

by Susan Curtis
(Myrtle Beach, SC)

I love the style of how the book was written. First of all is was historical fiction. It was a book that traveled from the 1400 till the present. Then the author found certain things that were found in the book, a hair a feather a blood stain, etc. Then she ended the first chapter.

Then the next chapter was she traveled back to a certain time to explain the mystery of one of the items found in the book and how it got there, and that ended that chapter. She jumps forward back to present time researching about the next thing she finds in the book again, and then the next chapter with the next thing she finds in the book, and etc, etc.

In the mean time she delves in her own life, with her mother and her history that she just finds out about. I thought this was a good way to correlate the whole book with mystery and history that happened in her own life. I just thought this was a fantastic way to put this all together. I did not know the history about Bosnia and Jews, and Muslims and how society lived side by side with each other. I became curious about Bosnian history and the society that lived there before and now. I had to go on the internet to investigate the history of the Bosnian people and the Sarajevo Haggadah.
I found a wealth of information. It is very fascinating. The only history I knew was the ethnic cleansing that happened during that time. My brother is a photojournalist and was asked to go over there for a assignment. Now, when a author can get you curious enough to research about the background of a book, then she has done her job well.