The former head of international news at the Guardian, English begins his story with the near mythic quest by English explorer Alexander Gordon Laing, who set off from Tripoli in 1825 to become the first European to reach the fabled city of Timbuktu. He survives a vicious attack by a group of Tuareg and a yellow fever epidemic to reach his destination, writes back to his command of finding abundant records there, and then disappears from history. The "manuscripts of Timbuktu," English notes, were thought to have been destroyed in 2012 by rebels who trashed Timbuktu's monuments. English writes vividly of explorations of the past and complications of the present, with a focus on the Indiana Jones-style account of the evacuation of the manuscripts, spearheaded by a courageous librarian named Abdel Kader Haidara. (Credit: Riverhead)
《衛(wèi)報(bào)》國(guó)際新聞前主編查理?英格里希以英國(guó)探險(xiǎn)家亞歷山大?戈登?萊因一次近乎神秘的探險(xiǎn)開(kāi)始了他的故事。1825年，萊因由的黎波里出發(fā)，他從圖阿雷格人惡意的襲擊和一場(chǎng)黃熱病中幸存下來(lái)，到達(dá)了目的地，成為第一個(gè)到達(dá)傳說(shuō)中的城市——廷巴克圖的歐洲人。他寫(xiě)信給指揮站說(shuō)發(fā)現(xiàn)了大量記錄，然后他就從歷史中消失了。人們認(rèn)為，在2012年反政府武裝摧毀廷巴克圖時(shí)，這本“廷巴克圖手稿”就已經(jīng)被他們損毀。英格里希生動(dòng)地描寫(xiě)了對(duì)歷史的探索和混亂的現(xiàn)實(shí)。他以印第安納瓊斯式的風(fēng)格著重講述了勇敢的圖書(shū)館管理員Abdel Kader Haidara牽頭撤離手稿的行動(dòng)。（來(lái)源：河源出版社）