The book collectors: a band of Syrian rebels and the stories that carried them through a war

"An extraordinary account of a band of young men in a besieged Damascan suburb who find books in the rubble and create a secret library"--
Long a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regimes, Daraya fell under siege in 2012. For four years no one entered or left, and aid was blocked. Bombs fell on this place of homes and families. A group searching for survivors stumbled upon a cache of books; in a week they had six thousand volumes; in a month fifteen thousand. A sanctuary was born: a library to escape the blockade, offering Arabic poetry, American self-help, Shakespearean plays and more. Over text messages, Minoui came to know the young men who gathered in the library, exchanged ideas, learned English, and imagined how to shape the future, even as bombs kept falling from above. -- adapted from jacket