Download or read book The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu written by Joshua Hammer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice** To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean’s Eleven in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (The Washington Post) from the author of The Falcon Thief. In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: preserve this crucial part of the world’s patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door. “Part history, part scholarly adventure story, and part journalist survey…Joshua Hammer writes with verve and expertise” (The New York Times Book Review) about how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist “has all the elements of a classic adventure novel” (The Seattle Times), and is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His the story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.

Download or read book The Falcon Thief written by Joshua Hammer and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “well-written, engaging detective story” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs—and the wildlife detective determined to stop him. On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were fourteen rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a “vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do” (Publishers Weekly), following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions—and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey. “Masterfully constructed” (The New York Times) and “entertaining and illuminating” (The Washington Post), The Falcon Thief will whisk you away from the volcanoes of Patagonia to Zimbabwe’s Matobo National Park, and from the frigid tundra near the Arctic Circle to luxurious aviaries in the deserts of Dubai, all in pursuit of a man who is reckless, arrogant, and gripped by a destructive compulsion to make the most beautiful creatures in nature his own. It’s a story that’s part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page.

Download or read book Joshua s Hammer written by David Hagberg and published by Forge Books. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a one-kiloton Russian nuclear demolition bomb the size of a suitcase ends up in the hands of multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, the entire world sits up and takes notice. And when the United States launches an attack on the terrorist's base of operation in Afghanistan, killing his daughter, retaliation against America is inevitable. Now, Kirk McGarvey is in for the race of his life, and a race against time. McGarvey has to find out how the bomb will get to the United States, where it will be detonated, and when this, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, will take place. But not only must McGarvey stop the bomb, he must protect his own daughter and the daughter of the president of the United States for a savage act of retaliation by a man gone mad. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book A Season in Bethlehem written by Joshua Hammer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003-09-22 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newsweek's Jerusalem bureau chief Joshua Hammer arrived in the West Bank in October 2000 -- just after Ariel Sharon made his inflammatory visit to the Haram al-Sharif, otherwise known as the Temple Mount. Sharon's trip ignited the worst violence the Middle East had seen in decades. Overnight, the peace process gave way to an ever-worsening cycle of attack, revenge, and retaliation, destabilizing the entire region, killing thousands, and culminating in Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian towns in 2002. A Season in Bethlehem is the story of one West Bank town's two-year disintegration, as witnessed by a reporter who was there from the beginning. Woven together from Hammer's own firsthand reportage plus hundreds of interviews, it follows a dozen characters whose lives collided on the streets of this biblical city. They include a Bedouin tribesman who rose to become the commander of Bethlehem's most feared and brutal gang of gunmen; the beleaguered governor, an opponent of the al-Aqsa intifada, who believed he had a mandate to stop the violence, only to discover that Yasser Arafat was undermining him; a Christian businesman who watched helplessly as his community was squeezed between Muslim militants and the Israeli army; an eighteen-year-old female honors student turned suicide bomber; and an Israeli reservist, son of a leader of the Peace Now movement, who wrestled with his left-wing convictions as he rode to battle through the predawn streets. The narrative reaches a climax with a moment-by-moment recreation of the epochal drama that drew many of these characters together: the thirty-nine-day siege of the Church of the Nativity. A clear-eyed chronicle of deepening chaos and violence, in which Hammer lets the opposing sides speak for themselves, A Season in Bethlehem is both a timely and timeless look at how longstanding religious and political tensions finally boiled over in a place of profound resonance: the birthplace of Jesus.

Download or read book Summary of Joshua Hammer s the Bad ass Librarians of Timbuktu written by Sumoreads and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary, analysis and review of the book and not the original book. Joshua Hammer's harrowing tale, "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu" tells the story of the secret mission to smuggle almost 400,000 manuscripts from Timbuktu in a fascinating and in-depth look at a piece of history many are unfamiliar with. This SUMOREADS Summary & Analysis offers supplementary material to "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu" to help you distill the key takeaways, review the book's content, and further understand the writing style and overall themes from an editorial perspective. Whether you'd like to deepen your understanding, refresh your memory, or simply decide whether or not this book is for you, SUMOREADS Summary & Analysis is here to help. Absorb everything you need to know in under 20 minutes! What does this SUMOREADS Summary & Analysis Include? An Executive Summary of the original book Editorial Review Key Takeaways and analysis from each chapter Chapter-by-chapter summaries A short bio of the the author Original Book Summary Overview Joshua Hammer's, "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts" tells the true-life story of Abdel Kader Haidara's secret mission to smuggle 377,000 centuries-old manuscripts out of Timbuktu during the 2012 jihadi occupation of northern Mali. Hammer's book is packed with thrill-a-minute adventures well-told by one of today's most prominent journalists. This action-packed narrative is a great read not only for history buffs and bibliophiles, but for anyone who wants to understand more about the rise of radical Islam and the way events have unfolded leading up to the modern-day Middle East. BEFORE YOU BUY: The purpose of this SUMOREADS Summary & Analysis is to help you decide if it's worth the time, money and effort reading the original book (if you haven't already). SUMOREADS has pulled out the essence-but only to help you ascertain the value of the book for yourself. This analysis is meant as a supplement to, and not a replacement for, "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu."

Download or read book Battles of the New Republic written by Prashant Jha and published by Hurst. This book was released on 2014-01-12 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Battles of the New Republic: A Contemporary History of Nepal is a story of Nepal's transformation from war to peace, monarchy to republic, a Hindu kingdom to a secular state, and a unitary to a potentially federal state. Part-reportage, part-history, part-analysis, part-memoir, and part-biography of the key characters, the book breaks new ground in political writing from the region. With access to the most powerful leaders in the country as well as diplomats, it gives an unprecedented glimpse into Kathmandu's high politics. But this is coupled with ground-level reportage on the lives of ordinary citizens of the hills and the plains, striving for a democratic, just and equitable society. It tracks the hard grind of political negotiations at the heart of the instability in Nepal. It traces the rise of a popular rebellion, its integration into the mainstream, and its steady decline. It investigates Nepal's status as a partly-sovereign country, and reveals India's overwhelming role. It examines the angst of having to prove one's loyalties to one's own country, and exposes the Hindu hill upper-caste dominated power structures. Battles of the New Republic is a story of the deepening of democracy, of the death of a dream, and of that fundamental political dilemma - who exercises power, to what end, and for whose benefit.

Download or read book The Rebel of Rangoon written by Delphine Schrank and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2015 An epic, multigenerational story of courage and sacrifice set in a tropical dictatorship, The Rebel of Rangoon captures a gripping moment of possibility in Burma (Myanmar) Once the shining promise of Southeast Asia, Burma in May 2009 ranks among the world's most repressive and impoverished nations. Its ruling military junta seems to be at the height of its powers. But despite decades of constant brutality-and with their leader, the Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, languishing under house arrest-a shadowy fellowship of oddballs and misfits, young dreamers and wizened elders, bonded by the urge to say no to the system, refuses to relent. In the byways of Rangoon and through the pathways of Internet cafes, Nway, a maverick daredevil; Nigel, his ally and sometime rival; and Grandpa, the movement's senior strategist who has just emerged from nineteen years in prison, prepare to fight a battle fifty years in the making. When Burma was still sealed to foreign journalists, Delphine Schrank spent four years underground reporting among dissidents as they struggled to free their country. From prison cells and safe houses, The Rebel of Rangoon follows the inner life of Nway and his comrades to describe that journey, revealing in the process how a movement of dissidents came into being, how it almost died, and how it pushed its government to crack apart and begin an irreversible process of political reform. The result is a profoundly human exploration of daring and defiance and the power and meaning of freedom.

Download or read book I Kissed Dating Goodbye written by Joshua Harris and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joshua Harris's first book, written when he was only 21, turned the Christian singles scene upside down...and people are still talking. More than 800,000 copies later, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, with its inspiring call to sincere love, real purity, and purposeful singleness, remains the benchmark for books on Christian dating. Now, for the first time since its release, the national #1 bestseller has been expanded with new content and updated for new readers. Honest and practical, it challenges cultural assumptions about relationships and provides solid, biblical alternatives to society's norm.Clear, stylish typeset, with user-friendly links to referenced Scripture.

Download or read book Yokohama Burning written by Joshua Hammer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is very wide in scope and will be extremely useful to both undergraduates and lecturers undertaking modern analytical chemistry courses.

Download or read book Entering Jewish Prayer written by Reuven Hammer and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2010-12-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging and informative book provides an introduction to the liturgy of the Siddur--the Jewish prayerbook. More than a "how-to" guide, this resource deals with basic issues for the modern worshiper, the historial compilation of the Siddur, and much more.

Download or read book Joshua s Song written by Joan Hiatt Harlow and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boston, 1919. It’s been a terrible year for thirteen-year-old Joshua Harper. The influenza pandemic that’s sweeping the world has claimed his father’s life; his voice has changed, so he can’t sing in the Boston Boys’ Choir anymore; and now money is tight, so he must quit school to get a job. It’s not fair! Joshua begins working as a newspaper boy, hawking papers on the street, but he soon finds himself competing with Charlestown Charlie, a tough, streetwise boy who does not make things easier for Joshua. It seems that fitting in is not as easy as it once was. Then disaster strikes the city of Boston. Joshua must do what he can to help, and in doing so he finds the place—and the voice—that he thought he’d lost. This remarkable novel is fast-paced, suspenseful, and based on true incidents in Boston history.

Download or read book God s Radical Grace written by J. Harold Ellens and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “As facets on a gem reveal its hidden beauty, so Dr Ellens’ sermons for Ordinary Time(s) disclose the depth and beauty of the scriptures relating to these months of the Christian year between Pentecost and Advent. His long career prepared him well to author this book. With the approach of a scholar, the patience of a teacher, and the understanding of a pastor, he gives the reader new insights into these familiar scriptures. To read one of his sermons on a glorious summer day is to pray in the words of a favorite hymn, ‘Be Still, my Soul, The Lord is on Thy Side.’ To read one of his sermons on a day of great need, will give the reader reason to be grateful for this book.” – Beuna Coburn Carlson, Church Administrator and Christian Educator, PCUSA, Retired “I have only actually heard one sermon by J. Harold Ellens, but reading this wonderful collection reminds me why he has long been one of my favorite homilists. More like a conversation than a monologue, these sermons immediately pull me into dialogue within myself and with God. Read them and be challenged, stimulated, provoked, informed, and edified. Receive them as medicine for your spirit and soul. Be prepared to be blessed by the Spirit that inspired them.” – Dr David G. Benner, author of Soulful Spirituality and Spirituality and the Awakening Self; website: www.drdavidgbenner.ca

Download or read book Vicious Rumer written by Joshua Winning and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Violent but whip-smart... This thrill-ride will delight and enthral’ – heat magazine ‘Introduces a truly badass heroine to the world of YA’ – Book Riot A fresh and fiercely unique thriller, Vicious Rumer features one of the most complex and unusual heroines in years. The ruthless and independent Rumer Cross is a snarky survivor whose moving story explores notions of identity, family, death and redemption. RUMER CROSS IS CURSED. Scraping by working for a dingy London detective agency, she lives in the shadow of her mother, a violent criminal dubbed the ‘Witch Assassin’ whose bloodthirsty rampage terrorised London for over a decade. Raised by foster families who never understood her and terrified she could one day turn into her mother, Rumer has become detached and self-reliant. But when she’s targeted by a vicious mobster who believes she’s hiding an occult relic, she’s drawn into the very world she’s been fighting to avoid. Hunted by assassins and haunted by her mother’s dark legacy, Rumer must also confront a terrible truth: that she’s cursed, because no matter what she does, everybody she’s ever grown close to has died screaming... ‘An exhilarating read’ – SFX ‘It’ll keep you up all night’ – Closer ‘Bloody good and at times just plain bloody’ – Teen Librarian ‘Brutal, stylish and relentless’ – Chris Whitaker, author of ALL THE WICKED GIRLS

Download or read book A Great Place to Have a War written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.

Download or read book In Extremis written by Lindsey Hilsum and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Finalist for the Costa Biography Award and long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Named a Best Book of 2018 by Esquire and Foreign Policy. An Amazon Best Book of November, the Guardian Bookshop Book of November, and one of the Evening Standard's Books to Read in November "Now, thanks to Hilsum’s deeply reported and passionately written book, [Marie Colvin] has the full accounting that she deserves." --Joshua Hammer, The New York Times The inspiring and devastating biography of Marie Colvin, the foremost war reporter of her generation, who was killed in Syria in 2012, and whose life story also forms the basis of the feature film A Private War, starring Rosamund Pike as Colvin. When Marie Colvin was killed in an artillery attack in Homs, Syria, in 2012, at age fifty-six, the world lost a fearless and iconoclastic war correspondent who covered the most significant global calamities of her lifetime. In Extremis, written by her fellow reporter Lindsey Hilsum, is a thrilling investigation into Colvin’s epic life and tragic death based on exclusive access to her intimate diaries from age thirteen to her death, interviews with people from every corner of her life, and impeccable research. After growing up in a middle-class Catholic family on Long Island, Colvin studied with the legendary journalist John Hersey at Yale, and eventually started working for The Sunday Times of London, where she gained a reputation for bravery and compassion as she told the stories of victims of the major conflicts of our time. She lost sight in one eye while in Sri Lanka covering the civil war, interviewed Gaddafi and Arafat many times, and repeatedly risked her life covering conflicts in Chechnya, East Timor, Kosovo, and the Middle East. Colvin lived her personal life in extremis, too: bold, driven, and complex, she was married twice, took many lovers, drank and smoked, and rejected society’s expectations for women. Despite PTSD, she refused to give up reporting. Like her hero Martha Gellhorn, Colvin was committed to bearing witness to the horrifying truths of war, and to shining a light on the profound suffering of ordinary people caught in the midst of conflict. Lindsey Hilsum’s In Extremis is a devastating and revelatory biography of one of the greatest war correspondents of her generation.

Download or read book When a Crocodile Eats the Sun written by Peter Godwin and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2008-04-10 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After his father's heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downwards into the jaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years. Then Godwin discovered a shocking family secret that helped explain their loyalty. Africa was his father's sanctuary from another identity, another world. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.

Download or read book The Nephilim Code written by Bob Perry and published by Bob Perry. This book was released on 2010-02-03 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nephilim, a mystic and ancient order, will go to any length to protect their mysteries and the greatest secret of all-the very knowledge of their existence. Ty Roland, stuck in an unsatisfying and routine job, spends his life avoiding responsibility. Life changes suddenly for Ty when his estranged grandfather dies, leaving him and a forgotten cousin Debbie, an unlikely inheritance-and a mysterious note with a cryptic code they must decipher. As they unravel the mysteries of their grandfather's past, a bazaar world of knowledge, power, and deceit threatens everything they believed to be true while bringing Ty and Debbie dangerously close to the shadowy secrets of the Nephilim.