pickAs expected the guy ended up with the girl by the end.....
The end felt a bit rushed to finish but a overall good read.
It been a while since I read a book over 600 page's but I did enjoy this one and it's very different from the film, as usual!
#readingontheroad
#Australiabound
#Mali
#adventure
A very engaging non-fiction about the colonisation by the French of what is now #Senegal, #Guinea and #Mali, and its ramifications in modern-day France and Senegal, centered around the mythical sabre of El Hadj Oumar Tall, looted along with his treasure and library in 1890, at the sack of Ségou by the French colonial army.
The sabre (picture from https://chroniques.sn) was “lent back“ by France to the musée des civilisations noires in Dakar
so-so#TemptingTitles Day 7: #OneWord title. Read this as part of our #DecolonizeReads2023 theme. I am glad that I persevered and challenged myself further even when I was on the verge of abandoning the book, because I knew that there is complexity and truths here that need to be revealed. There is also courage – an outspokenness against White colonizers that I find particularly gratifying. My review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-pdC
so-soFinished this today and for the most post I enjoyed it. There were a few slow parts but I enjoyed reading about his travels to the most remote places on Earth.
so-soI fear journalists feel a necessity to focus on the facts that will sell best, and this book suffered for that approach. I wanted more on the manuscripts, their rediscovery, preservation, digitization and housing, their content and significance to the culture/history, rather than the conflict that briefly, if dramatically, threatened them (some destruction). I wish one of the librarians had written it, or Skip Gates. Sad books are not yet home.
Something about the way this is phrased rubs me the wrong way, like the author's pointing out a flaw of a particular region, when Europe and US have both had periods in history of 'religious purification' (witch trials, spanish Inquisition), 'anti-intellectualism' (book burning, and I would argue McCarthy era) and barbarism (middle ages, colonialist enslavement and confinement of indigenous peoples).
Ignite?! 😬🔥Talk about growing pains in digitization! Suppose they did chemistry calculations beforehand, or only figured it out after a scanned manuscript was suddenly on fire?!
Had a long day full of meetings today but I‘m not often in Leeds anymore so I seized the chance to go to The Leeds Library and pick out some books I had identified for #readingtheamericas2023.
They‘re all on 12 week loans so will keep until next year.
Let me know if you want to know which countries any are for.
Not sure who‘s playing along, so tagging any Littens I‘ve noticed!
Upcoming reads: Non-fiction about libraries and librarians. 📚♥️
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}