Reading Challenge Reviews: Life and Death

Let's see out April's theme in the 2019 Reading Challenge with a matter of life and death. We have our favourite guest reviewer, Theresa Petray, with a novel that looks at the life of a book and the lives it touched along the way. Meanwhile, Ruth tackled the big question: what song do you want played at your funeral?

May starts in a few days, and brings a new challenge with it. We hope you enjoyed this romp through things deep and meaningful.

Theresa Petray read People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.

In People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks flips through the history of a famous Jewish book, and the many stages in its life. About half the book is told from the perspective of Hanna, a book conservation expert. She is an Australian who is brought to Sarajevo in 1996 to inspect an illuminated Haggadah. Historically noteworthy because it was the earliest illuminated Jewish manuscript, the book had been in hiding for several years as protection against the war in Bosnia. Hanna’s job is to repair any damage that resulted from its hiding, and prepare it to go on public display.

Interspersed with Hanna’s investigations are chapters that bring us back in time to crucial moments in the book’s history. Those important moments coincide with important moments in Jewish history - WWII, Venice in 1609 where the Pope burned many Jewish texts, Spain at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Through the lens of the book’s history, we see the intertwined history of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. While that history is sometimes tense, ultimately the story focuses on what people have in common and how they have supported each other.

People of the Book does this historical retelling well. There is a bit of personal drama, a bit of love, and a bit of crime that are not as well developed, but Brooks’ writing is engaging. The plot isn’t a thriller - there is no particular urgency to most of the discoveries - but the structure kept me wanting to know more about this famous manuscript.

Australian author, Fiction, 820A BROO(G) 1C PEO

Ruth Marsh read Sweet Sorrow: A Beginners Guide to Death, by Mark Wakely

This book will take you on a journey that begins “…just before life ends…a journey that will take you into hospices and hearses, crematoriums and churches, morgues and mausoleums.” (p.9)

It touches on religion and its impacts on death and burials – everything from what your final outfit will be to whether you will be embalmed or not.

Some of the more humorous parts include music chosen for funerals.  Mark Wakley speaks with funeral directors to ask what music people chose for their own or their loved one’s funeral.  Some of the more unusual selections included the theme from MASH (‘Suicide is Painless’), Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ and from The Wizard of Oz, not ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ but ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’.

This book follows Mark’s own journey of grief and inquiry into death.  This book was easy to read, humorous and at times heartbreaking.

Australian author, non-fiction, author I haven't read before, 306.9 WAK