A thrilling new novel exploring how memory shapes the soul, by "an astonishing storyteller" (Financial Times)
Software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented a program 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 kidnapped—leaving Judith free to usurp her sister's life, including her husband and daughter, while Josie's talent for preserving memories becomes her only hope of escape.
A century earlier, Solomon Schechter, a Cambridge professor, hunts for a medieval archive hidden in a Cairo synagogue. What he finds will reveal the power and danger of the world Josie's work brings into being—a world where nothing is ever forgotten.
Interweaving stories from Genesis, medieval philosophy, and the digital frontier, A Guide for the Perplexed is a spellbinding tale sure to bring a vast new readership to the acclaimed work of Dara Horn.
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“Another richly textured blend of history, psychology,
religion, and human emotion…Yes, the novel is as intricately constructed as Joseph’s
coat of many colors, and, yes, it echoes the thematic density of the philosophical
work after which it is named, but beneath all that beats the living heart of a
very human drama, one that will have readers both caught up in the suspense and
moved by the tragic dimensions of the unresolved dilemma at the core of the
story.”
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Booklist (starred review)