Shelfology Book Pairing

by Geraldine Brooks

When book conservator Hanna Heath gets a call about a medieval manuscript that has been recovered from the ruins of war-torn Sarajevo, she knows she is on the brink of the experience of a lifetime. She must now make her way to Bosnia to work on restoring the Haggadah, a Jewish prayer book. But the trip also threatens to rock her orderly life.

by Elif Shafak

1974, on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows. In 'The Island of Missing Trees', prizewinning author Elif Shafak brings us a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, memory and amnesia, human-induced destruction of nature, and, finally, renewal.