Today’s hero: the 82-year-old Egyptian man who has collected 15,000 books for his community.
Amid all the terrible book (banning) news, it’s nice to find a small bright spot. Today, that brightness takes the form of 82-year-old Hamdallah Abdel Hafez, who has been collecting books for his community in Dakahlia, Egypt for the past 50 years. So far, Hafez has collected near 15,000 books, which he lends to people in his community, which lacks a public library.
An excellent reminder that everyone deserves access to books (except maybe Republican legislators intent on burning them)!
In addition to lending books, Hafez also offers people space to read in his impressively stacked, as well as recommendations. His library includes a wide array of book in genres including, according to Hafez, “literary, Islamic books, and different studies in more than one field, the interpretation of the Qur’an, the prophetic hadiths, and the Arabic language, which I adore.”
In a video, Hafez also delivered this tote-bag worthy quote about his preferred reading medium: “The paper culture is my preference until the end of life.”
[via Yahoo]
