Are You Reading the 2009 One Book, One Community Book???

Last evening this year's One Book, One Community: Our Region Reads project was launched at a lovely reception at the Palmyra Community Library.

In case you missed it the book selection for 2009 is The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.

From a Publisher's Weekly review: "Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in 1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the U.N. to report on its condition. Missing documents and art works (as Dan Brown and Lev Grossman, among others, have demonstrated) are endlessly appealing, and from this inviting premise Brooks spins her story in two directions. In the present, we follow the resolutely independent Hanna through her thrilling first encounter with the beautifully illustrated codex and her discovery of the tiny signs-a white hair, an insect wing, missing clasps, a drop of salt, a wine stain-that will help her to discover its provenance. Along with the book she also meets its savior, a Muslim librarian named Karaman. Their romance offers both predictable pleasures and genuine surprises, as does the other main relationship in Hanna's life: her fraught connection with her mother. In the other strand of the narrative we learn, moving backward through time, how the codex came to be lost and found, and made."

So, what is this One Book thing? Well, it's a collaboration between 72 libraries in seven south-central Pennsylvania counties to bring you events and book discussions involving the selected book.

The good news is that if you don't live in one of our counties you can still participate by joining the discussions online at the One Book link above.

Be sure to check out the "Related Materials" page for related titles on events and places from the book as well as links to some great sources on the web.

Miss Bun has heard nothing but good things about this book. So run, don't walk to your nearest library, bookstore, computer, etc. and get a copy of People of the Book and start reading!