Reviews + Articles
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer
What a fascinating account! The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer is a story of the past, and an account of present terrorism and destruction of the world's treasures. It's a story of...
Where Are You Reading?
I'm down to the last 100 pages of Joshua Hammer's The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. For years, a young man, Abdel Kader Haidara, traveled across the Sahara and along the Niger River, searching for valuable manuscripts that told the cultural history of northern...
Pistols and Petticoats by Erika Janik
The subtitle of Erika Janik's nonfiction book, Pistols and Petticoats, is "175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction". Although the two subjects should fit together perfectly, they didn't seem to flow as well as they should have in the book. However, if you...
June Treasures in My Closet – Part 2
Let's "jump" (you'll understand in a second) right into the second part of the June Treasures in My Closet postings. These books will all be released in June. The first book is Keith McCafferty's latest Sean Stranahan mystery, Buffalo Jump Blues. After the...
June Treasures in My Closet – Part 1
Welcome to part 1 of Treasures in My Closet, featuring the June releases. It's quite an eclectic mix, so we'll dive right in. Italian novelist Nanni Balestrini brings us We Want Everything. In the autumn of 1969, Italy exploded as workers went on strike for...
Not a Thing
I have nothing to post for today. Wait until tomorrow, though, because I'll have at least the start of the June Treasures in My Closet. I was up too late on Thursday night with the Edgar Awards, and posting. Friday, I had friends over. We had Staff Institute at...