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SYRIA'S SECRET LIBRARY

READING AND REDEMPTION IN A TOWN UNDER SIEGE

A fantastic, timely story, beautifully told, of a civilization’s refusal to die.

A BBC reporter’s portrait of Darayya library in Syria, “a secret library filled with thousands of books rescued from the rubble of war.”

Telling an extraordinary story with consummate narrative skill, putting readers directly in the thick of the action, Thomson grabs our attention from the beginning and doesn’t let go. The author relied on Skype and WhatsApp for much of his reporting. Though the internet was often down, people recorded answers to his questions on their mobiles, ready to send when the connection was restored. Surrounded in 2012 by government forces, Darayya was subjected to bombing, chemical attacks, and siege for four long years, which makes the survival of a secret library even more remarkable. In 2013, amid the devastation of bombed-out buildings, a devoted group salvaged books from private libraries, council offices, and ruined buildings, at great personal risk. The new library’s overseer was Abdul Basit, followed closely by 14-year-old Amjad, the “self-declared Chief Librarian.” Other caretakers included students of civil engineering and chemistry and a rebel fighter. The revolution ended all university work, but the library found textbooks to help students continue. Their site was top secret, a basement in a side street with destroyed upper floors and no sign. Word of mouth was the only way to find it. When they did discover it, their joy reflected the deep need for normality in a war zone. The appearance of the “Syrian Banksy,” with his inspiring graffiti, produced hope for the present, and the library gave people hope for the future. Throughout the book, readers will be impressed and inspired by the resilience of these people. When the siege ended, the citizens of Darayya were evacuated, mostly to Idlib, another revolutionary center near the Turkish border, and allowed only a suitcase or two—no books. Thomson’s reporting is unquestionably thorough and compassionate.

A fantastic, timely story, beautifully told, of a civilization’s refusal to die.

Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5417-6762-1

Page Count: 336

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Awards & Accolades

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  • Readers Vote
  • 66


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  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2017


  • New York Times Bestseller


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  • National Book Award Finalist

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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