An Informal Book Review

I recently started a new book, one which I found at the library where I volunteer. You may remember it from this post. One day, as I was putting books back on the shelves where they belonged, I straightened up some of the books already on the shelves, and came across a title I'd found (serendipitously) on The Great Internet. Which I almost immediately put on my To-Read List. Here it is, in its lovely hardcover jacket.

I haven't finished the book yet (as I should, before I post a review, but does anyone mind?)

This book reminds me of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (a favorite of mine). The narrative travels through time, and follows several individuals who play a role in the rescue of the Sarajevo Haggadah over the past 6 centuries. It opens with the main protagonist, a young Australian book conservator in 1996, who gets asked to recently war-torn, tense Sarajevo to conserve the text. She finds an insect's wings and other anomalies in the book. Her search for the history of the book itself, and how it has survived over the centuries, leads to the other narratives, the first of which takes place in (again) war-torn Sarajevo, this time the Second World War. This second narrative follows a young, poor Jewish girl in Sarajevo, fighting to survive. Her trials lead her to the kustos of the National Museum, a Muslim with a passion for history and diversity and the kindhearted motivation to save a young Jewish girl.


That's as far as I've gotten, but the writing is beautifully evocative, the plot suspenseful and quick-moving, and the stories engaging.