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The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts

By: Publisher: New York; Simon & Schuster; 2016Description: 278 Pages; PaperbackISBN:
  • 9781476777412
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 025.82
Summary: To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean's Eleven in this "fast-paced narrative that is...part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller" (The Washington Post). 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 were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: to preserve this crucial part of the world's patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Book Adult and Young Adult 15-17 Karachi History 025.82 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available PKLC020190
Book Adult and Young Adult 15-17 Lahore History 025.82 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available PKLC022592
Total holds: 0

To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean's Eleven in this "fast-paced narrative that is...part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller" (The Washington Post). 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 were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: to preserve this crucial part of the world's patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door.

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