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Cargando... The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a Warpor Delphine Minoui
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. nonfiction audio (4+ hours) books salvaged from bombed out buildings in Damascus, Syria are organized into a secret library (relatively safe from bombs, but visitors must be careful of sniper fire), a journalist decides to write a book about it, thanks to years-long correspondence with the rebels who maintained it until the mandatory evacuation of the city, 2012-2016+. Originally published in French. Riveting and still timely as people continue to live under war and oppression.
Muaddamani was 19 in 2011 and refused to join his family who had escaped to a neighboring town. In late 2013, his friends discovered books in a destroyed house. They soon realized there were more books buried in the city's wreckage. They found the basement of an abandoned building near the front line to house the books. In short order, they had 15,000 volumes. Online, Minoui comes to know Daraya's residents. She meets library director Abu el-Ezz in a make-shift clinic where he's suffering the effects of a barrel bomb. Through her fuzzy computer screen, she meets library patrons who describe love poems by Nizar Qabbani, their newfound passion for Shakespeare and Molière, and novels from Marcel Proust to J.M. Coetzee...Minoui comes to understand that the library transports these young Syrian rebels elsewhere... PremiosDistincionesListas de sobresalientes
Daraya is a town outside Damascus, the very spot where the Syrian Civil War began. Long a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regimes, Daraya fell under siege in 2012. For four years, no one entered or left, and aid was blocked. Every single day, bombs fell on this place - a place of homes and families, schools and children, now emptied and broken into bits. And then a group searching for survivors stumbled upon a cache of books in the rubble. In a week, they had six thousand volumes; in a month, fifteen thousand. A sanctuary was born: a library where people could escape the blockade, a paper fortress to protect their humanity. The library offered a marvellous range of books - from Arabic poetry to American self-help, Shakespearean plays to stories of war in other times and places. The visitors shared photos and tales of their lives before the war, planned how to build a democracy, and tended the roots of their community despite shell-shocked soil. In the midst of the siege, the journalist Delphine Minoui tracked down one of the library's founders, twenty-three-year-old Ahmad. Over text messages, WhatsApp, and Facebook, Minoui came to know the young men who gathered in the library, exchanged ideas, learned English, and imagined how to shape the future, even as bombs kept falling from above. By telling their stories, Minoui makes a far-off, complicated war immediate and reveals these young men to be everyday heroes as inspiring as the books they read. The Book Collectors is a testament to their bravery and a celebration of the power of words. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)956.9104History and Geography Asia Middle East The Levant SyriaClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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I'm a sucker for inspirational books about books, libraries and survival, so this seemed right up my alley. It also conveniently satisfied the category "a book about books" for Read Harder 2024. These brave citizens created something beautiful and inspiring for their community out of overwhelming, devastating tragedy and loss. Though the narrative felt a little choppy with often extremely short chapters, and rapid pivots, it was overall a quick, engaging read. I'm somewhat ashamed to realize that Syria rarely, if ever, appears in my newsfeed, and I've spent most of the last decade oblivious to its citizens' suffering. Kudos also to Minoui for her dedication to bringing their story, photos and videos to the awareness of the rest of the world. ( )