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This is tough to review because I love another book by this author (Year of Wonders) and I admire the research this clearly took to write. Also, the premise is so cool: readers follow the Sarajevo Haggadah throughout history along with Hanna, a rare book specialist, in 1996. Each stain, etc. is linked back to a moment in time featuring characters and far flung settings. Unfortunately, style left me without connections to characters besides Hanna.

What a fascinating imagining of the people who shared in the life of an ancient text. It really brings to mind just how much was lost in book burnings of yore.

32/80

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"I might as well say, right from the jump: it wasn't my usual kind of job."

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Still working on covering the faded pink of my house. Starting my 2nd Geraldine Brooks during brakes.

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This book of short stories (indeed, most were under 10 pages) was a terrific, albeit heartbreaking read. The author is Bosnian and lived in the former Yugoslavia worker as a journalist and writer during the war. His stories focus on the disruptiveness and impact of the war both directly and indirectly, and the cost to relationships between people and their land. The final story, The Library, affected me deeply. Recommended!

Finally finished today. I have deliberately taken my time reading this as war is such a heavy topic for me. I did enjoy it, but was unaware of any controversy surrounding it until today when I was talking about it with my art therapist (who often asks me what I am reading and she looked the story up).

A beautiful character study of how normal people navigate war. Heart wrenching yet hopeful.

A collection of essays and poems, this book was an early piece about the ongoing Siege of Sarajevo and the Bosnian War. A Bosnian city resident and writer living out the early ‘90s under daily sniper fire and shelling, Mehmedinovic documents what strikes him hardest amongst the existential dread and ennui of this war, from the gray hairs found in his young son‘s hair to fellow artists risking their lives to chronicle Sarajevo‘s destruction.

To start tomorrow. Not sure how I will go as books in war are not really my thing, but still trying to read my way around the world.