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A garbage man saved 25,000 books and turned them into a library. The pictures are amazing.

There is no such thing as book heaven. Unless you're in Bogota, Colombia, and know an angel named Jose.

What do you do with old books?

You might pass them along to a friend, donate them, or add them to one of those Little Free Libraries. But, let's be honest, a good amount of used books end up in the trash.

If you live in Bogota, Colombia, the person who picks up your discarded book might be José Alberto Gutiérrez. And if Gutierrez finds your old book, it is one lucky little book indeed.

Gutiérrez at work. Photo by AP Photo/Fernando Vergara.

For the past 20 years, Gutiérrez has been on a mission to save discarded books.

Bookshelves piled on top of bookshelves? Looks like my room. Photo by Guillermo Legaria/AFP/Getty Images.

Gutiérrez, a garbage man, saves old books that other people have thrown away. Books are usually left separate from the rest of the rubbish, and if they're in good condition, Gutiérrez picks them up and takes them home.

Though Gutiérrez's collection started with a single book (Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"), today the total number of recovered reads has grown to roughly 25,000 at last count. The books take up the entire ground floor of his house, stacked up into great walls and mountains of pages.

[rebelmouse-image 19530219 dam="1" original_size="750x500" caption=""I want that one!" Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP." expand=1]"I want that one!" Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP.

As the collection grew, people began to take notice. Visitors would ask if they could borrow a book or two to help their kids get ready for school.

The whole endeavor is now a community library: "La Fuerza de las Palabras" — "The Strength of Words" in Spanish.

Think of how much they must weigh! Photo by Guillermo Legaria/AFP/Getty Images.

Gutiérrez's family helps run the project, coordinating pickups, doing the administrative work, and organizing events.

But more than instilling a love of books, the program is also about giving kids a leg up in education.

Gutiérrez lives in the La Nueva Gloria barrio, a low-income neighborhood in southern Bogota. When he started, the community's single school didn't have a library of its own. A donation from Gutiérrez helped fix that.

In fact, since he's started, Gutiérrez has donated reading materials to 235 different schools and communities.

Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP.

"The whole value of what we do lies in helping kids start reading," Gutiérrez told Al Jazeera.

"I grew up, here and I can tell you it got me a Ph.D. in marginalization and poverty," Gutiérrez said. "Kids here don't have a place to study; instead, they have to start working early."

Today the library has become a fixture of the city.

Gutiérrez has been invited to book fairs and profiled by local newspapers. An old, donated ambulance has been turned into a bookmobile. There are even plans to build a real brick-and-mortar building.

The other garbage truck drivers know exactly where to bring books if they find any. There is no such thing as book heaven, but La Fuerza de las Palabras must be pretty dang close.

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Photographer Mehmet Genç travels the world snapping pictures of all the interesting people he meets. But it's not always an easy job.

Genç and one of his subjects. All photos by Mehmet Genç used with permission.

"If you go to remote place, usually people there are not relaxed when taking photo of them," he said in an email. He asks his subjects to smile, to loosen up, but often they won't, at least not right away. It takes time to earn their trust and build comfort with them, he says.

So on a trip to San Cristóbal, Mexico, in 2015, Genç tried something a little different while taking pictures of a local woman.

He told her, "You are so beautiful." And he meant it. Her face lit up, he said, and when he saw the photo of that moment, he knew he was onto something incredible.

Right then and there, the project "You Are So Beautiful" was born, with Genç traveling the world trying to capture the joy people experience in the exact moment they receive a genuine compliment.

Those four simple words transcend language, culture, and age. His work mostly features women, but Genç said men like being told they are beautiful too. Who wouldn't?

These before-and-after photos are truly incredible. Here are some of Genç's absolute favorites:

1. A woman from Xela in Guatemala.

2. A 70-year-old Ecuadorian woman.

3. Margarita, 74, also from Ecuador.

4. A woman from the mountains of Colombia.

5. A young girl in a small Colombian village.

6. A woman from a Guatemalan village called Santa Maria.

7. Iwan-eva, a native of the Amazon region in Brazil.

8. A 17-year-old girl from Brazil's Amazon region.

9. An 88-year-old from the town of Atalaia do Norte in Brazil.

10. And Zarek, a 77-year-old native Arhuaco woman from Colombia.

Genç says the response to his project has been overwhelmingly positive, with many people wanting to recreate it themselves.

And while the photos are great, he insists the project is really about making people happy — and how easy it can be to do that.

"You can just say two words ('You're beautiful') and ... people are happy!" he said. "It's not important what age and where they are."

That's a message that can only be described as, well, beautiful.

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The last war in the entire Western Hemisphere has just ended.

UPDATE 10/3/2016: On Oct. 2, 2016, the Colombian peace deal was narrowly struck down by voters, leaving Colombians in shock. Both sides have vowed not to go back to fighting, however, meaning an era of peace is still expected.

As of September 2016, there are no more wars in the Western Hemisphere.

Yep, that's what I said. Read it again if you need to. The entire Western Hemisphere — also known as 50% of the planet — does not have a single war zone.

That's the Western Hemisphere on the left. The whole left. Photo via CIA World Factbook/Wikimedia Commons.

So that's cool.

When the president of Colombia and rebel leader Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri brokered a peace deal on Sept. 26, 2016, the only war happening west of the prime meridian came to an end.

For decades, Colombia has been engaged in a civil war. Not one war exactly — but a rotating series of insurgency groups and guerrilla movements that have taken arms against the Colombian government for over 50 years.

The last of those groups, called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, signed a peace deal with President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday, Sept. 26, 2016. The agreement will need to be ratified by voters, but the vote is expected to pass easily.

Both men wore white and shook hands as the Colombian crowd chanted, "Long live Colombia! Long live peace!"

Photo by Guillermo Legaria/AFP/Getty Images.

A simple handshake ushered in a new wave of peace for Colombia, and an unprecedented era of peace for (one half of) the world.

No matter how cynical you are, half the planet being war-free is a pretty inspiring milestone — though, of course, there are some caveats.

For one, lack of officially declared wars doesn't mean complete peace. Colombia and Mexico still suffer from drug violence. In fact, after a three-year decline, homicides tied to organized crime in Mexico have been sharply increasing.

There's ongoing political unrest in Venezuela that, just recently, sent 30,000 protestors marching into the streets.

Government protestors running from the Venezuelan National Guard in 2014. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

Here in America, we've officially ended our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but still have a military presence in the Middle East. In fact it was just announced that more U.S. troops would be headed to Iraq in the continuing fight to stop ISIS. We've also faced too many mass shootings, police killings, and domestic acts of terror recently to even keep track of.

Photo by Laura Buckman/AFP/Getty Images.

The world is far from being free of problems and conflict, but things don't change overnight. It took decades for Colombia to find a peaceful solution to their conflict, and it was no small accomplishment when they did.

News like this is a reminder that the problems of the world can come to peaceful resolutions — that step by step, handshake by handshake ... we can make the world better and safer.

It's just in time too. Because you've probably been hearing a lot of this lately...

GIF via Bloomberg Politics/YouTube.

Whether the culprit is ISIS, guns, terror, hackers, nuclear China, or "the cyber," it sure can seem like the whole world is one small step away from becoming a dangerous back alley filled with machete-wielding murderers who want to steal our jobs.

In reality, things are looking up: global poverty is down, world hunger is down, and life expectancy is up.

Whatever metric you want to use, things are looking pretty good for humanity.

Achieving "world peace" has always seemed like a bumper sticker slogan or a pipe dream, but ... that's always been kind of the point.

Photo by Abid Katib/Getty Images.

Maybe we'll achieve that seemingly impossible goal one day, maybe we won't. I don't know if, in our lifetimes, we'll wake up one morning and find out that every war in the world has ended.

All I know is we woke up one morning in September 2016, and we were already halfway there.

An animal rights activist spent over a year fighting for the biggest transcontinental lion rescue ever.

The circus can be a really cruel place for animals.

You might think the lions and tigers (hopefully not bears — oh my!) performing in circus acts are tough, wild beasts doing just fine, but we’re starting to understand that these magnificent creatures are actually treated really poorly.

All photos courtesy of Animal Defenders International, used with permission.

Paws.org describes life as a circus animal as “a monotonous and brutal routine of boredom, stress, and pain.” The animals spend virtually 100% of their lives in chains or caged and are subjected to extreme forms of discipline, such as whipping, choking, and electrical shocks.

No living thing deserves to be treated like that.

But recently, an organization called Animal Defenders International launched the biggest rescue operation of its kind to save some of these animals.

Their small team, led by founder Jan Creamer, has been saving wild animals from cruel captivity all over the world since 1990.

All GIFs via Animal Defenders International/YouTube.

Creamer gets things done.

Over the past year, Creamer and ADI have rescued 33 lions from circuses in Peru and Colombia and slowly nursed them back to health.

Working with local governments, Creamer and her team investigated the biggest offenders of the countries’ wild animal trafficking laws.

They discovered 33 lions (and hundreds of other animals) being kept in conditions of extreme abuse and neglect. Nine of the lions were voluntarily surrendered by a circus in Colombia, but the rest had to be forcibly removed by armed government agents.

Many of the big cats were starving, with the tips of their toes cut off as a primitive de-clawing method, and some were even missing their teeth, so they couldn’t survive in the wild. The ADI immediately provided the lions with the medical care they needed.

But in addition to medical care, love and TLC were part of the lions' recovery plan too, and that included making sure the lions were all given proper names.

Meet some of these incredible animals:

Joseph

Rapunzel

Liso

You can meet all 33 of the beautiful cats here.

The lions needed a home, so ADI teamed up with Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa to create one.

After they fully recuperated, in late-April 2016, all 33 rescued felines were flown across the Atlantic Ocean toward freedom.

With fundraising partner GreaterGood.org, ADI successfully raised the more than $330,000 needed for the flight to transport the 33 lions back to Africa on a gigantic MD11F cargo plane (the flight was appropriately named Spirit of Freedom).

On the morning of April 29, the nine cats in Colombia were treated to a nice preflight meal.

You can see their whole journey in this video. The lions were loaded onto the Spirit of Freedom aircraft in Bogota.

Later that morning, the MD11F landed in Lima, Peru, to pick up its 24 remaining passengers.

By the time the plane landed in Johannesberg on the afternoon of April 30, the lions were (understandably) eager to see their new home.

As they were unloaded from the plane, Creamer held a press conference reminding reporters what these lions have been through.

She also explained what this entire rescue operation is for:

After that, it was just a day’s journey by car from the airport to the Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary.

Once they reached their destination, the animals were unloaded from the truck one by one…

... and released joyously into their new habitat!

Our (big) feline friends are now feeling right at home in their sanctuary.

Photo by Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary, used with permission.

Jan says, “[At Emoya] these animals will live in safety, in their natural environment and freedom from fear, pain and distress caused by humans. They will be cared for in a loving environment where they are respected and protected.”

Compared to what they’ve been through, this sanctuary is like a five star resort for the lions. Even better, the lion habitats will be steadily expanded as the lions become familiar with all their new free-space, and with each other.

Fingers crossed this leads to a new reality show called "The Real World: Big Cat Sanctuary on Animal Planet" ... but hopefully without any drama. These cats have had enough of that.

Hakuna matata!

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Check out 25 breathtaking libraries from all around the world.

"Libraries Transform"

That's the theme of this year's National Library Week, an annual awareness celebration sponsored by the American Library Association.

You might be wondering why something as ubiquitous as a library would need more attention, considering the fact they've been pretty major staples of civilization since at least2600 B.C. But that's because you live in a time and place where information resources are readily available, so it's easy to take them for granted. And of course, the only reason we have books and knowledge and guidance right there at our fingertips is — you guessed it — libraries.

Here are some physically transformative libraries from across the globe to show you just how transcendent they can be.

Tree of Knowledge? Books are like trees turned into knowledge! Photo by Alfred Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images.

1. Geisel Library — University of California, San Diego

This beautiful brutalist spaceship was named for Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Seuss Geisel), and plenty of Seussian statues litter the gardens around it.

Photo by Belis@rio/Flickr.

2. Admont Abbey library — Admont, Austria

The largest monastic library in the world dates back to 1776, and contains thousands upon thousands of historical manuscripts and records from throughout the monks' history.

Photo by Jorge Royan/Wikimedia Commons.

3. The AD White Reading Room at Uris Library — Cornell University

This reading room was named for one of the co-founders of the university, but it looks more like something out of a Lemony Snicket story. The library's collection also claims one of the only extant copies of the Gettysburg Address, plus first editions of "Origin of Species," the "Book of Mormon," and "Pride and Prejudice."

Photo by eflon/Flickr.

4. Bibliotheca Alexandrina — Egypt

The original Ancient Royal Library of Alexandria was built in the third century B.C., but the newest building to commemorate it was inaugurated in 2002. The original structure was destroyed and burned frequently during historical conflicts, so while the library's latest iteration might not be that old, it's still pretty stunning.

Photo by Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images.

5. Arma de Instrucción Masiva — Buenos Aires

Why yes that is an armored tank that travels the world giving out books. OK, technically it's a converted Ford Falcon designed by an Argentinian artist named Raul Lemesoff, but this "weapon of mass instruction" (get it?) is still awesome.

Photo by Carlos Adampol Galindo/Flickr.

6. Mobile Beach Library — Tel Aviv

Who cares about a beach bod when you can flex your mind? The Tel Aviv Municipality cultural department set this cart up at Metzitzim Beach for the enjoyment of locals and tourists alike.

Photo by Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images.

7. Levinski Garden Library — Tel Aviv

Also found in Tel Aviv, this stand was setup in 2010 as a "social-artistic urban community project" specifically designed to appeal to the city's immigrant and refugee populations.

Photo by Itzuvit/Wikimedia Commons.

8. Biblioteca Vasconcelos — Mexico City

Speaking of knowledge, Wikipedia leads me to believe that this $100 million project is totally definitely not a glitch in "The Matrix." OK, sure.

Photo by Eneas De Troya/Flickr.

9. The Bibliobus, Bookmobile, or other motor-powered information vehicle

Easily accessible information is a key tenet to democracy. But not everyone can get to a physical library (or a computer with internet access). So these bookbuses bring the words to the people (or at least to underserved communities in their respective municipalities).

This particular one is run by the Ottawa Public Library system. Photo by SimonP/Wikimedia Commons.

10. Kudapustaka (translated: "horse library") — Indonesia

The mobile libraries above are cool and all, but they're not so useful for remote locations like Central Java Indonesia. Like a knight in paperback armor, Ridwan Sururi and his trusted steed, Luna, spread knowledge across the communities of the island, helping to educate its many residents.

Photo by Putu Sayoga/Getty Images.

11. Biblioburro (translated: "donkey library") — Colombia

Similar to the kudapustaka above, the biblioburro is run by a primary school teacher named Luis Soriano and his donkeys, Alfa and Beto, and it brings literature and adventure to children in poor and remote parts of the country. They even have their very own documentary!

Photo by Acción Visual/Diana Arias/Wikimedia Commons.

12. Tiny Free Libraries — everywhere

We've already written about these and they're still every bit as wonderful as they were then.

Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.

13. The Long Room at Trinity College — Dublin

Ireland has a long history of maintaining written records and copies of, well, everything. The history of the Trinity College library goes back to the late-16th century, but since 1801, it's served as an archive collection for any copyrighted material printed in Ireland or the U.K., making it a massive trove of intellectual property.

Photo by David Iliff/Wikimedia Commons.

14. National Library of Kosovo — Pristina

Kosovo has a long and complicated history, but it's still pretty remarkable they were able to take golf balls lodged in a chainlink fence as inspiration for a reference space full of private reading rooms. Yes, it's been called one of the ugliest buildings in the world — but in truth, that shouldn't distract from the incredible fact that a central hub of information like this has remained intact throughout all of the country's conflicts.

Photo by Fitore Syla/Wikimedia Commons.

15. National and University Library — France

Located in Strasbourg near the Eastern border of France, this library was actually founded by the German Empire after the city's original municipal library was destroyed by Prussia. In a testament to the power of information, the new library received an overflow of book donations from countries across Europe and the United States, and it now holds France's second largest collection at 3 million volumes.

Photo by Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images.

16. The National Library of China — Beijing

Sometimes reading a good book is like spiraling down an endless hole of awesomeness. That's also how it feels to stare down the levels of China's immaculate National Library, which contains the largest collection of Chinese literature and historical documents in the world, as well as one of the largest overall collections in the world, spanning more than 115 languages.

Photo by IQRemix/Flickr.

17. Community Bookshelf — Kansas City, Missouri

OK so technically this a parking garage next to the Kansas City Public Library, but it still counts. 'Cause c'mon, that's awesome. Each of the 22 books (which you can imagine endured a daunting selection process) measures approximately 25 feet tall by nine feet wide.

Photo by Tim Samoff/Flickr.

18. Philippines neighborhood library — Manila

After his parents passed away, Nanie Guanlao wanted to find a unique way to honor their memory. So he put a few dozen books outside his house for free and encouraged people to borrow them — which they did and brought back new book donations with them. 15 years later, his home library boasts thousands of books, and some locals consider it the true "national library" of the Philippines.

Photo by Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images.

19. Stockholm Public Library — Sweden

This place is just plain ol' gorgeous. Maybe "Stockholm syndrome" should mean getting lost in these stacks.

Photo by Chibi Code/Flickr.

20. Stadtbibliothek Stuttgart — Germany

Stuttgart's original public library at Wilhelms Palais was the converted home of King Wilhelm II. The new location, which opened in 2011, is less of a castle, more of a spaceship come from the future to transport our brains beyond the stars. (I always wondered why my friend who grew up in Stuttgart was so well-versed in literature; now I understand.)

Photo by O Palsson/Flickr.

21. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library — New Haven

One of the world's largest libraries devoted entirely to rare books and manuscripts, they have an original Gutenberg Bible! And if that's not amazing enough, just look at those glass columns. It's like the past and the future converged in one place. Books will blow your mind, man.

Photo by Lauren Manning/Flickr.

22. Metropolitan book vending machinea — Tokyo

Looking for cigarettes, soda, or maybe snack? Japan's got a better idea — use your imagination. (Please note: Thoughts do not contain calories and Upworthy is not responsible for any damage caused by supplementing your nutritional intake with books.)

Photo by Pedro Layant/Flickr.

23. This converted phone booth — Prague

Can you think of a better way to brighten up a hospital waiting room? If you're a book fiend with a crippling fear of hospitals, like me, it's perfect. Phone booth libraries like this have also been known to pop up in places like London and Berlin, particularly as mobile phones have increased in popularity and stationary phone booths have otherwise lost their purpose.

Photo by Michael Cizek/AFP/Getty Images.

24. National Library of Brazil — Rio de Janeiro

The largest library in Latin America has been on the cutting edge of science education and technology since it opened in 1810. And like the Mexico City library above, it is definitely totally not a scene from "The Matrix."

Photo by Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images.

25. National Digital Library — Seoul

Also known as the "Dibrary," this building boasts plenty of advanced information technology facilities, offering a wide range of e-books and magazines, and digital movies and music — just no actual physical media of any kind. But that's OK; information access still counts in kilobytes as well as in paper (wrote the writer on the website).

Photo by Mosman Library/Flickr.

So yes, libraries transform.

They transform minds. They transform cultures. They even transform the world, both metaphorically and physically. If libraries can transform spaces like this, imagine what they can do to your mind.

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Police officers in Colombia made a startling discovery recently: an abandoned newborn baby, left for dead in the forrest.

The Metro, a U.K.-based site, shared the story of a baby in the South American country who was discovered in the undergrowth of a "remote forest settlement."

Starving and at risk for hypothermia with its umbilical cord still partially attached, the baby girl wasn't in great condition.

Never fear, though! A breastfeeding mom/superhero police officer was there.

The baby was found by Edinora Jimenez, a 59-year-old who was out collecting oranges. She immediately called the police. Among the responders was officer Luisa Fernanda Urrea, who just so happened to be a new mom. She did what any new mom/superhero in her position would do: she breastfed that baby.

Photo by Radio Robledo.

Yep, that's right! Urrea did the one thing she could to help the struggling newborn. "I’m a new mother and I have milk and I recognised the needs that this poor little creature had," she told local media. "I think any woman would have given her nourishment in the same circumstances."

Watch Urrea in this video uploaded to Facebook:

(The baby survived and is currently in the custody of Colombian Institute for Family Welfare, which is working on finding an adoptive family for her.)

While this officer is being heralded across the world for her amazing act, sadly, women in the U.S. who breastfeed publicly aren't always treated so well.

In fact, many people are so offended when they see a woman breastfeeding in public that they feel compelled to tell her to stop, move, or cover up. Why is the U.S. light-years behind many other countries when it comes to the way we view the very natural act of feeding a baby?

If you think about it, the fact that some people insist moms cover up or even leave public spaces to breastfeed is odd because we see breasts all over the place, sexualized in our daily lives — from commercials selling cheeseburgers to print ads for men's cologne. The truth is that breastfeeding is a healthy and natural way to nourish a baby for mothers who choose it, and it's time we catch up to so many other countries that view is as such.

The upside: Advocates continue to speak out.

Actress Alyssa Milano recently confronted a talk-show host who voiced her discomfort with seeing a woman breastfeeding but was perfectly fine seeing a celebrity with her breasts exposed in a provocative pose.

"So for you, maybe you've sexualized breasts," Milano told host Wendy Williams after she told Milano: "I don't need to see that. I just don't want to."

For an additional piece of food for thought, consider this: Women make up a small portion of police departments.

Very small, actually. According to Katherine Spillar writing in the Washington Post and citing 2007 Department of Justice statistics, women comprised only 6.5% of state police forces and 11.2% of sheriffs' forces in the U.S. That's unfortunate for many reasons, including this:

"A 2002 study by the National Center for Women & Policing of excessive force incidents in seven major city police departments found that 'the average male officer is over eight and a half times more likely than his female counterpart to have an allegation of excessive force sustained against him ... [and] two to three times more likely than the average female officer to have a citizen name him in a complaint of excessive force.'”

Not only can female officers literally save babies lives, as Urrea did, on the very rare occasion the opportunity comes up, but they can calmly police communities in a less violent way on the daily. Sounds like a win to me.

Kudos to officer Urrea for her quick thinking on the job.