Mike Thomson, BBC News: “When a place has been besieged for years and hunger stalks the streets, you might have thought people would have little interest in books. But enthusiasts have stocked an underground library in Syria with volumes rescued from bombed buildings – and users dodge shells and bullets to reach it…As it is, the library is in an area considered too dangerous for children to approach. One young girl, Islam, tells me that she spends almost all her time indoors, playing games to help her ignore the gnawing pangs of hunger in her stomach and reading library books she is given by friends…”