The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer

 First sentence:

"He shifted nervously in the front passenger seat of the four-wheel-drive as it approached the southern exit of the city."

Description:

In the 1980s, a young archivist, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niver River, tracking down tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of pastoralists and farmers. His goal: to preserve this crucial part of the world's patrimony. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door.

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the remarkable true tale of how mild-mannered Haidara became one of the world's most prolific smugglers, organizing a heroic heist to sneak all 350,000 manuscripts to the safety of southern Mali. 'At once a history, caper and thriller' (The Economist), it is the extraordinary story of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling--and a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture from the threats of the modern world." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about a courageous archivist and his colleagues and how they saved literary treasures that otherwise would have been destroyed. I work in the library and archives world, but I am nowhere near as brave as Haidara. I recommend this book to anyone who's curious about both the history of Western Africa and its current fate.

Date read: 2022?
Genre: Nonfiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 1476777411
ISBN-13: 9781476777412
Publisher: Simon & Shuster
Year: 2016
# of pages: 278
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing page

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

 First sentence:

"A boy is coming down a flight of stairs."

Description:

"England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor--penniless and bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family's land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down--a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a moving and bitterswet book. I enjoyed learning about Shakespeare's family and their lives during the Black Plague. 

Date read: 2/18/2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4*/5 = great

ISBN-13: 9780525657613
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Year: 2020
# of pages: 305
Binding: Hardcover
LibraryThing page