Book Log 2016 #39: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer

Mali doesn't get a much attention in the US with regards to the war on terror, but in the early part of the 2010s the country was more or less taken over by al-Qaeda, who co-opted a rebellion by the Touareg people to take control over most of the country.

One of the things this put in jeopardy is the country's large collection of historic manuscripts (both Islamic and secular), which had been collected over decades and stored in the city of Timbuktu. Fearing their destruction, a librarian (who was involved in collecting the manuscripts in the first place) arranged a smuggling operation aimed at getting the collection - numbering some 350,000 volumes - to relative safety in the southern part of the country, which was not under al-Qaeda control.

It's a gripping story, both for the actual movement of the collection and the recounting of life under a repressive theocratic insurgency. It's very much worth a read, both to learn about a part of the world that gets very little coverage (especially in the US) and to get even more confirmation that librarians are not to be trifled with.