ANOTHER REVIEW of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks has been published by Regis Schilken in Blogcritics Magazine. Haven't seen one of these for awhile. Excerpt:

I would recommend People of the Book to those who enjoy a series of individual short stories. By this I mean the fanciful Haggadah journeys in between most chapters.

Each of these tales is well-written but predictable in this sense: the reader discovers early that each Haggadah journey involves some kind of terrifying threat to the book, often to the lives of those who rescue it. Finally, the tale would be more compelling if the exaggerated, painful, daughter-mother relationship were left out entirely.

I think the book is worth reading. As fiction, it gives the reader a non-fictional sense of the terrors of past Jewish history. The Haggadah's survival down through six-plus centuries is remarkable. During that long period of time, I feel certain it has undergone countless narrow escapes with destruction similar to that detailed in People of the Book.