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The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu

and Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts
Apr 22, 2017BWilsoned rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Does not live up to its title; however, very readable (except middle section explaining the various sects in the Maghreb) and an amazing story. I think the author missed the boat, so to speak, by not elaborating on why these manuscripts are so important to the world and why the invading fundamentalists would want to destroy them. In fact, they seem to destroy about 4,000 volumes out of sheer spite as they are forced from Timbuktu, but they never looked around to find the thousands of texts in the basement storage. The main character's nephew is the most bad-ass--he's the one in the prologue, sweating bullets while going through a checkpoint with a truckload of manuscripts.