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What Members Thought
The title alone would suggest some pulpy fiction reminiscent of King Solomon's Mines. However, Joshua Hammer's book is a meticulously researched history of Timbuktu. He expertly describes the history of the area and brings the reader up to date about recent ISIS threats.
The librarian Haidara inherited his father's manuscript collection with a mission: to recover and restore the lost heritage of Timbuktu. With the history of Muslim extremism it proves difficult to convince people to give it towar ...more
The librarian Haidara inherited his father's manuscript collection with a mission: to recover and restore the lost heritage of Timbuktu. With the history of Muslim extremism it proves difficult to convince people to give it towar ...more
May 21, 2024
Mandy
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
interesting-non-fiction,
2024
This had the potential to be really interesting but I found it a bit of a bait-and-switch. I found the writing very dry and while the race to save the world's most precious manuscripts was PART of the book, it was by no means the focus and instead, I found myself reading more about Islamic terrorists than I expected.
I fear this should have remained as an article or perhaps a series of articles rather than being made into a book. ...more
I fear this should have remained as an article or perhaps a series of articles rather than being made into a book. ...more
This book frustrated me because it could have been really good. I totally wanted to know about bad-ass librarians saving ancient manuscripts in Mali. It started off slow but interesting as we learned how our main librarian collected these manuscripts, many of which weren't being properly preserved and were in the hands of people who didn't fully know what they had. But then came jihadis to Mali, and the author explained how they came to take over the north and insititue sharia law in extensive d
...more
Mar 18, 2017
Julia
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
history,
politics,
religion,
african-lit,
non-fiction,
around-the-world,
read-around-the-world
Fascinating and scary.
