On its surface, Markus Zusak's bestselling novel The Book Thief is yet another evocative portrayal of life in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust and World War II. To dismiss it as such, however, would be a crime against literature, or perhaps even language itself.

Most of the people who read this review also live and work within the halls of a university, a place of knowledge and learning, of seeking information and of developing the wisdom to use that information properly. Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brook's novel, People of the Book, is in many ways a university in clothbound form; a treasure house of information spun within the context of an incredibly well-crafted and intricately beautiful tale of mystery, intrigue and, above all else, how the past can shape our perceptions of the present.