Complex and intriguing, Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book takes the reader on a book's journey through time. But the point isn't the book, it's the people around it. It's the people that created it and protected it. Here are a few quotes:
Page 195: "Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other' - it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists...same old, same old. It seems to me the book, at this point, bears witness to all that."
Page 214: I let the white grains fall from my hand onto a weary, rust-edged lettuce leaf. Thousands of feet below, the salty waves of an unseen ocean heaved and crashed in the dark.
Page 232: It did not even occur to David to consult Ruti herself about this, or any other matter. Had he done so, he would have been most surprised by the result. He did not realize it, but his love for his daughter marched hand in hand with a kind of contempt for her. He saw his daughter as a kind-hearted, dutiful, but vaguely pitiable soul. David, like many people, had made the mistake of confusing "meek" with "weak."
Page 239: But some things on earth were possible, and some were not, and Ruti knew the difference.
