The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu
Charlie English
William Collins, $29.99
I always thought of Timbuktu as Woop-Woop. So it was a discovery to learn that in the Western imagination, as this history of the place and the mythology that has surrounded it for centuries shows, Timbuktu had always been a kind of African El Dorado: its houses covered in gold. But no westerner knew because they'd never found it. English explorer Major Laing, a classic Victorian buffoon, was the first to get there – nearly being killed on the way and dying soon after – to find a modest little town. Woop-Woop, indeed. It's all part of Charlie English's intention, to examine the myth and reality of Timbuktu and how the two informed each other over time. The parallel narratives – past and present – mirror this, especially the stirring 2012 story of the rescue of the city's thousands of historical documents from book-burning jihadists by librarians.