In the U.S., a trip to a bookstore is something we take for granted. In Baghdad, it’s a different story. This morning, 26 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a book market on Mutanabi Street:

Mutanabi Street, named after a legendary 10th-century poet, once attracted Baghdad’s intellectuals, who gathered at the bookshops for a lively exchange of ideas. “Papers from the book market were floating through the air like leaflets dropped from a plane,” a Health Ministry worker who was near the explosion told The Associated Press.

In 2003, NPR did this story on “The Booksellers of Muntanabi Street.”