A Guide for the Perplexed (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393064896)

Software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented an application that records everything its users do. When an Egyptian library invites her to visit as a consultant, her jealous sister Judith persuades her to go. But in Egypt's postrevolutionary chaos, Josie is abducted--leaving Judith free to take over Josie's life at home, including her husband and daughter, while Josie's talent for preserving memories becomes a surprising test of her empathy and her only means of escape.

A century earlier, another traveler arrives in Egypt: Solomon Schechter, a Cambridge professor hunting for a medieval archive hidden in a Cairo synagogue. Both he and Josie are haunted by the work of the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, a doctor and rationalist who sought to reconcile faith and science, destiny and free will. But what Schechter finds, as he tracks down the remnants of a thousand-year-old community's once-vibrant life, will reveal the power and perils of what Josie's ingenious work brings into being: a world where nothing is ever forgotten.

An engrossing adventure that intertwines stories from Genesis, medieval philosophy, and the digital frontier, A Guide for the Perplexed is a novel of profound inner meaning and astonishing imagination.

Author: Dara Horn
ISBN-10: 0393064891
ISBN-13: 9780393064896
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 09/09/2013
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.46lbs
Size: 9.53h x 6.45w x 1.21d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 04/15/2013 pg. 56
Publishers Weekly 06/17/2013
Library Journal 07/01/2013 pg. 76
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2013
Entertainment Weekly 09/13/2013 pg. 78
Booklist 09/15/2013 pg. 30
New York Times Book Review 09/29/2013 pg. 22
Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2014 pg. 11
Library Journal 04/15/2013