Finally a February meeting with no snow!!!
Pittsboro temperature was about 70 degrees as we arrived at Donna's house....much different than previous years!!
Great discussion about this month's book - The Girl Next Door.
Hostess Donna had to choose among the books she's accumulated....
Drum roll......
The March book read is:
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts
To save precious centuries-old Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of
librarians in Timbuktu pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean's
Eleven.
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
Qaeda 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
350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali.
Over
the past twenty years, journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu
numerous times and is uniquely qualified to tell the story of Haidara's
heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al Qaeda 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.
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