A review by bufally47
Journeys on the Silk Road: A Desert Explorer, Buddha's Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World's Oldest Printed Book by Conrad Walters, Joyce Morgan

3.0

I didn't really know what to expect from this book. Basically it's about the journey of the Diamond Sutra scroll -- the oldest dated book on record -- from its unearthing in 1908 until the present, with a good chunk describing the 1908 trek across the Taklamakan & Gobi deserts that led to its unearthing. This seems to be a book of tangents, in a way. They all loosely surround the Sutra: glimpses into the lives of Silk Road inhabitants 1200 years ago, the Westernization of Buddha as seen through murals, how cultural artifacts are stored during wartime, how delicate papers are preserved, a debate over cultural approbation, how Buddhism is coping with our modern technological world. I got bored here and there but it was still able to transport me to times and places I'll never reach, so three stars.