Wisdom on the bonfire

Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden John Murray, 320 pages, £20

In the late 10th century, a golden age of Islamic culture, the Baghdad bibliographer Al-Nadim told a legend of a wonderful library beyond the eastern edge of the Muslim world. It was: “a treasury of books in which are preserved all the sciences of Earth and heaven, the chronology of times past and times future… a place barred to all save those of the highest wisdom. Anyone permitted to see it is seized with a violent emotion in which impatience, sadness and a longing that captivates the heart