review È PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Ï Join or create book clubs
Read Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts review È PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Ï Join or create book clubs Join or create book clubs Ï 4 characters N the 1980s a young adventurer and collector for a government library Abdel Kader Haidara journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara a mild mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers In 2012 thousands of Al aeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali including Timbuktu They imposed Sharia law chopped off the hands of accused thieves stoned to death unmarried couples and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali Over the past 20 years journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu numerous times and is uniuely ualified to tell the story of Haidara's heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al aeda and preserve Mali's and the world's literary patrimony Hammer explores the city's manuscript heritage and offers never before reported details about the militants' march into northwest Africa But above all The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is an inspiring account of the victory of art and literature over extremism. The core story is fascinating A window into an ancient world I never imagined and the fascinating story of a person who first helped to reveal the scope and intellectual fervor of that world and then at great personal risk managed to save most of its treasures from modern barbarians A 5 star tale if there ever was one But the author looses his narrative skills when he describes the Islamic terrorists who wanted to destroy the past He fills chapters with small details only tangentially related to the core story totally submerging the core He apparently was just driven to publish every little thing he had learned about the bad guyswhatever its relevance In the end I am not sure what has happened to the library because I was exhausted trying to hold on to the thread of the story amongst all of his learned irrelevances
Read Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts
Read Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts review È PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Ï Join or create book clubs Join or create book clubs Ï 4 characters In the 1980s a young adventurer and collector for a government library Abdel Kader Haidara journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara a mild mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers In 2012 thousands of Al aeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali including Timbuktu They imposed Sharia law chopped off the hands of accused thieves stoned to death unmarried couples and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali Over the past 20 years journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu numerous times and is uniuely ualified to tell the story of Haidara's heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al aeda and preserve Mali's and the world's literary patrimony Hammer explores the city's manuscript heritage and offers never before reported details about the militants' march into northwest Africa But above all The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is an inspiring account of the victory of art and literature over extremism. I hated this book but managed to finish for my reading group because I was allowed to skip the part I hated which was about all the recent fighting and jihad business in and around Timbuktu That was the book The rest was interesting and the writing was good The first part gave the history leading up to the manuscripts and the uest to collect as many manuscripts as possible The last part was about the actual transfer of most of the manuscripts from the museum to a place of safety From the first part I gained a better understanding of how important the city of Timbuktu is and an understanding of the rich culture science Astronomy and Medicine and life occurring well before Europe was involved in such things A major failing was the total lack of any pictures of the manuscripts or the museum
review È PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Ï Join or create book clubs
Read Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts review È PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Ï Join or create book clubs Join or create book clubs Ï 4 characters In the 1980s a young adventurer and collector for a government library Abdel Kader Haidara journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara a mild mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglersIn 2012 thousands of Al aeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali including Timbuktu They imposed Sharia law chopped off the hands of accused thieves stoned to death unmarried couples and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern MaliOver the past 20 years journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu numerous times and is uniuely ualified to tell the story of Haidara's heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al aeda and preserve Mali's and the world's literary patrimony Hammer explores the city's manuscript heritage and offers never before reported details about the militants' march into northwest Africa But above all The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is an inspiring account of the victory of art and literature over extremism I. This is a fascinating tale and well told by Joshua Hammer But there are uibbles most of which we can attribute to the publisher s editors and fact checkersProofingediting errors are scattered throughout the book The author says Northwestern University is in Chicago It is in Evanston The text says B 52 bombers carry 70000 tons of weapons In fact they carry 70000 pounds of weaponsThe book was apparently written in sections and characters are re identified in chapter after chapterIt s nit picking I know but that s what editors proof readers and fact checkers are for