(Algonquin, $25)
For 11 centuries, “Judaism’s most important book” has been “lusted over, stolen, and neglected,” said Brook Wilensky-Lanford in The Boston Globe. Dictated by the great 10th-century rabbi Aaron Ben-Asher, the Aleppo Codex is considered the definitive version of the Hebrew Bible, and in investigating its complex history, Israeli journalist Matti Friedman hit storytelling gold. Stolen by Christian Crusaders in 1099, the codex was rescued by a wealthy Jewish community in Egypt, which paid a ransom for the document and eventually moved it to Aleppo, Syria. There it is thought to have been kept under guard for six centuries until 1947, when mobs angered by the creation of Israel set fire to the synagogue. At first, the codex was presumed lost.
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