Heart stopping drama in Mali and Timbuktu

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer is getting lots of publicity. The title is provocative and evocative of swashbuckling and fearsome fighting librarians as adventurers, think Noah Wiley’s movie and TV series “The Librarians.” The book takes readers on an adventure through the deserts of Saharan Africa, up and down the Niger River, and into the famed city of Timbuktu, all in the name of saving manuscripts, the cultural heritage of the Malian and Arab peoples.

Readers will be sucked into the mission of Abdel Kader Haidara, archivist and chief protector of Mali’s manuscripts written between 1100 and the present. Haidara first collects then rescues over 350,000 items from under the noses of fundamentalist Muslims in the Maghreb.  The jihad to destroy civilization in the name of Islam and Sharia law is chilling. The race to move manuscript and printed books over 300 miles from Timbuktu in the north to Bamako in the south is heart stopping. As the ‘bad-ass librarians’ move their precious heritage over the desert and down the Niger River they must evade fundamentalist forces who seek to eradicate all that does not conform to their narrow religious world view.

In dynamic contrast to the written book, the audio performance is unemotional and matter-of-fact. Listeners might expect a highly dramatic reading full of lilting African voices and flawless Arabic pronunciation. Alas, the reader is an American who pronounces the Arabic and African words without hesitation in an acceptable accent. The high drama is lacking and aural adventurers will pause to consider whether the book is appropriately titled.

For armchair travelers and aural adventurers alike, this book should be on everyone’s reading list. The drama is in the telling and the, as yet, unfinished saga of Mali’s manuscripts.

If you want to read more about the manuscripts in Mali and Timbuktu, check out:

• Hammer, Joshua. “Barbarians at the Gates: The Race to Save Mali’s Priceless Artifacts.” Smithsonian (Jan 2014): 64-74. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/Race-Save-Mali-Artifacts-180947965/
• Manuscripts from the libraries at Timbuktu at the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/ 
• “Timbuktu’s ‘Badass Librarians’: Checking Out Books Under Al-Qaida’s Nose.” NPR (April 23, 2016): http://www.npr.org/2016/04/23/475420855/timbuktus-badass-librarians-checking-out-books-under-al-qaidas-nose
• Interview with author in ALA (March 2016) https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2016/03/24/newsmaker-joshua-hammer/
• “The Brave Sage of Timbuktu: Abdel Kader Haidara.” National Geographic (April 2014): http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/04/140421-haidara-timbuktu-manuscripts-mali-library-conservation/

Thrilling Adventures Take Listeners to New Heights and Sights

Most of us are excited about travel and exploration but seldom get to exotic places. In fact, many of the most exciting places to travel to are in the past. So how do we get there without leaving our cozy homes? One way is to read or listen to a travel adventure stories written by historian, journalists, and novelists, past and present. There are blogger at Cotopaxi who share their adventures and write about travel http://aventuras.cotopaxi.com/. Cotopaxi https://www.cotopaxi.com/ inspired me to write about authors who inspire that drive to explore and learn about the world around us. One author of many spine tingling adventures is G.A. Henty.

Born in England in 1832, Henty was the author of Victorian children’s adventure tales that rival Jules Verne, R.M. Ballantyne, and Rudyard Kipling. While Verne, Ballantyne, and Kipling are well known to readers and movie-goers alike, Henty falls in and out of fashion. Nevertheless, his stories are gaining in popularity as they are recorded with full casts, newly released on CD for children of all ages, and all subtitled “the extraordinary adventures of G.A. Henty.”

Henty wrote over 122 adventure stories that take readers and listeners across the globe, from India to Africa, and from the wars in England, battles between knights and knaves, the Crusades, and the American Civil War. The audiobooks are filled with sound effects, from sword fights to galloping horses, from blizzards to torrential rains, from ships at sea to railroads and wagons. These sound effects, along with music, enhance each book and add to the adventure, all described in exquisite detail and imagined dialogue. 

Lace up your hiking boots and strap on your knives, swords, and guns as Henty takes you on adventures of a lifetime through rocky climes and mountainous terrain, over the sea and across lakes. The adventures don’t stop until the very last word echoes through your ears or across the page.

Long out of copyright, Henty’s books have been reprinted by many publishers including Dover Publications, Inc. http://search.doverpublications.com/search?keywords=henty  A number of audiobook publishers, including LibriVox https://librivox.org/author/287, Audio Theater, and Heirloom Audio http://www.heirloomaudio.com/have released Henty’s titles for a new audience of listeners and adventurers.

For a recent review of “In Freedom’s Cause” about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, see http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/110415/

What Are You Reading Today?

That's my favorite question to ask my students and colleagues. Does that make me a book person, a bibliovore (I just love that word), or just book crazy? I'd have to say all of the above.

I just answered a blog question "What Book(s) Got You Into Reading?" My answer is:
I have always had a book in front of me. But if I think back to childhood favorites I read (or had read to me) over and over again, they were "When We Were Young" and "Now We Are Six" by A.A. Milne, Madeline (my father can still recite it by heart), and Ferdinand the Bull. But books that really hooked me into reading were by C.S. Lewis, Sir Arthur Ransome, Tolkien, and American books like "Little House on the Prairie" and even fairy tales. I guess I've been hooked since I could read and look at the pictures. And I hooked my brother who reads equally voraciously.

 That's such a tough question because I've always been a reader. I'm especially lucky because my parents read widely and never discouraged us from picking up a book. I remember getting a library card at 5ish and filling those summer reading maps and lists several times over. I was really fortunate to watch little TV when I was growing up and then at that impressionable age of 9 and 10, what we'd call Tweens today, I lived overseas where there were few if any TV stations. Reading was the main form of entertainment, aside from playing with friends outside, running around, and school.

Even today, I always have a few books started, on my GoodReads list, tons on my TBR, and a number in my iPod for listening when I walk, drive, or work in the kitchen. If only I could think and listen at the same time :) This week, aside from audiobooks, I'm reading Fergus Bordewich The First Congress,  Jude Deveraux Ever After (I just love the dress) and Geraldine Brooks The Sacred Chord.  I'm certain I'll pick up another title or two before the week is over.

I'll admit it, I'm hooked on books! It's a good addiction to have. What are you reading?

Looking back at a year of reading

2015 was a year of active reading. I tried a few new genre and found I'm enjoying the lighter side of reading. To my surprise, my favorites in the past few months are books that revolve around food, baking, and cooking. Of course, then I end up filling my refrigerator with lots of yummy things to eat. 

Interspersed between the lighter works of fiction, I've been reading books about printing, libraries, and the book. In May, I embarked on a year of self-education, where I'm reading more complex books that parallel the courses I'm teaching. With the dawn of 2016 and the beginning of my course on the history of the book, I'll plow into some books about the book, printing, and libraries. I am currently reading a book at specialized book and printing markets in Early Modern Europe. With 20 essays, it will be a good exercise in focusing on new topics and translating them into lectures for my course. 

As to reading outside my comfort zone, I've been finishing books that are more literary in nature, that aren't a straight romance, saga, history, mystery, or thriller. Those books take much more energy and perseverance as I prefer to be entertained. Since I encourage my students, budding librarians, to read widely, I should do the same. 

Follow me on Goodreads if you want to see what I've been reading. https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1557957-miriam
Here's to a 2016 filled with diverse books and exploring new topics.

The first book printed with movable type

Christie, Alix. Gutenberg's Apprentice: A Novel (NY: Harper Collins, 2014 ISBN 978-0-06-233601-9)
Christie presents a wonderfully crafted fictionalized history of the invention of the printing press and movable type as told by Gutenberg’s apprentice Peter Schoeffer. Already an accomplished scribe, Schoeffer follows the wishes of his foster father and Gutenberg's financial backer, Johann Fust and learns all about the printing trades. Christie fills the story with the tension of this amazing project setting it into a political and religious context. In 1448, Gutenberg and Fust, along with others in his shop embark on a five-year project to print the Bible. They designed and carved their own type, experimented with different types of metal for the type (matrices and punches), and used the golden canon to lay out each page with crisply impressed letters. Using a hand written Vulgate Bible as a model, they printed 180 copies on large sheets of handmade laid paper and a precious few on vellum. Ultimately completed in 1455, each page was composed or laid out in 42 lines of left & right justified double columns of type. Topping out at 1400 sheets, the sixty five quires were bound into two volumes, 48 of which survive intact today. If you are interested in the history of the book, the history of printing and typography, or just want to know about printing bibles, this is the book to read.