I was stolen by the first page. Visions of ships, colonial India, poppy buds leaking sap, a young Indian mother. Locked in. Pages flying by... 

Imperfect. For sure. A kind of sliding door of characters through a slice of time all connected by a newspaper based out of Rome. Kudos for "getting in character" with so many different personalities, but I have a feeling this author (and newsman himself) has been collecting quirky profiles of co-workers his entire career and weaved them together for the sake of a book. BUT, I did read it quite quickly. (And finished it - not always the case.)

Wonderful! Read it! Everything Brooks writes is good.  Here's the review:  One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey... A complex love story, thrilling mystery, vivid history lesson, and celebration of the enduring power of ideas, People of the Book will surely be hailed as one of the best of 2008. --Mari Malcolm