In Turkey, one man’s trash has become an entire city’s treasure.

Sanitation workers in Ankara have opened a free lending library with books they salvaged. The workers created it for friends and families. The collection grew so large they worked with the local government to share it with everyone.

The more than 6,000 books are housed in an abandoned factory building, CNN reports. The library is filled with students and the children of city employees. Cyclists come to drink tea and play chess. And word has traveled: “Village schoolteachers from all over Turkey are requesting books,” the mayor said.

The hunger for books is something Monitor readers and writers understand. For years, Home Forum essayist Kate Chambers has been distributing books in Zimbabwe, whose people, she writes, long for reading material.

"This is an informal project, born of the deep gratitude I have for the part books have played in my life," she says in an email, saying that at one point, there were so few books available she would buy old car magazines for her son to read. She wrote about it in this story and in this one.

"Readers started emailing my editor, asking how they could help. I answered each email with a request for just small parcels .... Then the parcels started coming," she writes, saying about 30 Monitor readers have mailed books, as have as her mom, friends, and others. "I've lost count of the number of books I have given out ... over the last eight years it must be more than 8,000...." 

Now, here are the five stories we've chosen for you today, looking at a country's shift in thought, paths to progress in fighting addiction, and the thorny question of how to properly make amends for sins long past.