Happily they are all in neat copybook handwriting and in French. There are still two bookshops. The Evangelical Library and the Librairie Populaire du Mali glower at each other across the principal square. Sales cannot be high. The complete works of Billy Graham are for sale and some postcards.
Newspaper is at a premium, and is very useful for wrapping fish, meat or vegetables in the market.
More serious and substantial ideological books, such as the complete works of V.I. Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung, Marx or Engels are allowed to collect dust a little longer before their pages are passed on to the market. They are used for wrapping little packages of dye, chile pepper, snuff, chewing tobacco, the crushed leaves of the baobab tree used as an abortive, or charms to counteract djinns. Never throw stones at dogs in Timbuctoo. The lean hounds that skulk in the thorn bushes by day may be the djinns that will haunt you by night. A djinn starts as a small black spot in the corner of your room and ends up as big as the house.