Lawrence Wright

Veinte años después del 11-S, y diez de la muerte de Osama bin Laden, La torre elevada sigue siendo la mejor obra escrito sobre el auge del fundamentalismo islámico, la creación de al-Qaeda y los fallos de los servicios de inteligencia que culminaron en el atentado de las Torres Gemelas. Obra ganadora del Premio Pulitzer. Literatura como verdad.Antonio Muñoz Molina La torre elevada narra la increible historia de varios hombres cuyos destinos se entrecruzan y confluyen de forma dramatica el 11 de septiembre de 2001. Con una precision poco comun, sustentada en mas de quinientas entrevistas realizadas a lo largo de cinco años, nos describe el auge del fundamentalismo islamico, la creacion de al-Qaeda y los errores cometidos por los confiados servicios de inteligencia que culminaron en el atentado de las Torres Gemelas. Lawrence Wright recrea de modo excepcional la transformacion de Osama bin Laden y Ayman al-Zawahiri de combatientes idealistas e incompetentes en Afganistan a lideres del grupo terrorista mas temido de la historia; y sigue de cerca a John O'Neil, jefe de la seccion de contraterrorismo del FBI y uno de los pocos agentes estadounidenses que comprendio, ya en los años noventa, la magnitud de la amenaza que representaba dicha organizacion. Lleno de informacion, con una profunda perspectiva historica, este es el mejor libro escrito sobre los origenes de al-Qaeda y la muerte de Bin-Laden.Criticas:El libro del año.John Le Carre Gano el Premio Pulitzer. Su fuerza tremenda reside en el relato de los hechos y de sus origenes, de los procesos mediante los cuales hombres corrientes eligen matar y morir en nombre de delirios arcaicos; y de como las ideas mas dementes llegan a convertirse paso a paso en actos que cambian el curso del mundo y que podian haberse evitado.Antonio Muñoz MolinaLa torre elevada es el mejor libro que se ha escrito sobre Bin Laden, su relacion con al-Zawahiri y el 11-S.El Pais

'Wright's brilliantly constructed narrative is head and shoulders above the rest. He knows important parts of the Muslim world (including Saudi Arabia) at first hand, he understands the motors of Islamist militancy… Moreover, he is a fine writer with an eye for the telling detail. Even those who think they know the story intimately will feel they are reading it anew' New Statesman

L’amenaça de la torre, una història fascinant que s’estén al llarg de cinc dècades, explica amb gran riquesa de detalls el creixement del fonamentalisme islàmic, el sorgiment d’Al-Qaida i les errades

Deux personnages sont au cœur de l’enquête minutieuse que Lawrence Wright a menée pour écrire ce livre fascinant : le très inquiétant mais brillant auteur de science-fiction L. Ron Hubbard, dont l’im

Deux personnages sont au cœur de l’enquête minutieuse que Lawrence Wright a menée pour écrire ce livre fascinant : le très inquiétant mais brillant auteur de science-fiction L. Ron Hubbard, dont l’im

Toute ressemblance avec des faits réels...En Asie, 47 personnes succombent à une fièvre mystérieuse. Envoyé sur place par lOMS, Henry Parsons, épidémiologiste de renom, découvre à quel point le virus

In this fascinating work of historical fiction, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright captures all the gripping drama and black humor of Panama during the final, nerve-racking days of its legendary dictator, Manuel Antonio Noriega.It is Christmas 1989, and Tony Noriegas demons are finally beginning to catch up with him. A former friend of President Bush, Fidel Castro, and Oliver North, this universally reviled strongman is on the run from the U.S. Congress, the Justice Department, the Colombian mob, and a host of political rivals. In his desperation, he seeks salvation from any and all quarters -- God, Satan, a voodoo priest, even the spirits of his murdered enemies. But with a million-dollar price on his head and 20,000 American soldiers on his trail, Noriega is fast running out of options. Drawn from a historical record more dramatic than even the most artful spy novel, Gods Favorite is a riveting and darkly comic fictional account of the events that occurred in Panama from 1985 to the dictators capture in 1989. With an award-winning journalists eye for detail, Lawrence Wright leads the reader toward a dramatic face-off in the Vatican embassy, where Noriega confronts his psychological match in the papal nuncio.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2014 PICKA TOP TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR PICK BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLYA gripping account of the 1978 Camp David summit when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.With his hallmark insight into the forces at play in the Middle East, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright takes us through each of these historic thirteen days, illuminating the issues that have made the problems of the region so intractable and exploring the scriptural narratives that continue to frame the conflict. What emerges is a riveting view of the making of this unexpected and unprecedented peace treaty.

Although I read this book some weeks ago, I''ve been saving my review for the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Let me also take this moment to ask all those who read this review to say a prayer for the victims of 9/11.The roots of 9/11 trace back far into history, arguably to the 7th century when Islam was born. The Looming Tower takes up the story in November 1948 when Sayyid Qutb, an important Egyptian figure in the development of Islamic extremism, sailed for the United States where he was appalled by what he saw and experienced. Mr. Wright then nicely makes the connection to the Muslim Brothers movement which aimed at Egyptian nationalism. These twin roots developed a strain of Islam that was anti-modern and which dictated that all others must be violently conquered. The book next picks up the thread of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the key al-Qaeda leader, and how he became an Islamic radical through being tortured in Egyptian prison.The story then turns to Saudi Arabia where the legendary Mohammed bin Awahd bin Laden, Osama bin Laden''s father, is described. From his long shadow (even after death), Osama emerged slowly through his attraction to the Muslim Brothers movement. Sheikh Abdullah Azzam provided the radical model that further involved Osama into opposition.

Un virus mortel, un monde confiné, le thriller qui avait tout prévuEn Asie, 47 personnes succombent à une fièvre mystérieuse. Envoyé sur place par lOMS, Henry Parsons, épidémiologiste de renom, décou

Ten powerful pieces first published in The New Yorker recall the path terror in the Middle East has taken from the rise of al-Qaeda in the 1990s to the recent beheadings of reporters and aid workers by ISIS. With the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright became generally acknowledged as one of our major journalists writing on terrorism in the Middle East. This collection draws on several articles he wrote while researching that book as well as many that hes written since, following where and how al-Qaeda and its core cult-like beliefs have morphed and spread. They include an indelible impression of Saudi Arabia, a kingdom of silence under the control of the religious police; the Syrian film industry, then compliant at the edges but already exuding a feeling of the barely masked fury that erupted into civil war; the 2006-11 Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza, a study in disparate values of human lives. Others continue to look into al-Qaeda as it forms a master plan for its future, experiences a rebellion from within the organization, and spins off a growing web of terror in the world. The American response is covered in profiles of two FBI agents and a chief of the CIA. It ends with the recent devastating piece about the capture and beheading by ISIS of four American journalists and aid workers, and how the US government failed to handle the situation.

THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING BESTSELLER, NOW AN ACCLAIMED TV SERIESThis is the definitive account of the run-up to 9/11: from the man who lit the spark of radical Islam in 1948, to those who built up a terror network, and to the FBI agent whose warnings of something big coming were ignored until the Twin Towers fell.The Looming Tower is a thriller. And its a tragedy, tooThe New York TimesThe most detailed (and thrilling) account we have of the events that led to the destruction of the Twin TowersObserver, Books of the YearPossibly the best book yet written on the rise of al-Qaeda ... beautifully written and wonderfully compelling William DalrympleWe meet some formidable schemers and killers ... fabulists crazed with blood and death Martin Amis

A virtuoso feat ... a book of panoramic breadthNew York Times Book ReviewA devastating analysis ... Wright is a master of knitting together complex narrativesThe ObserverJust as Lawrence Wrights The Looming Tower became the defining account of our centurys first devastating event, 9/11, so The Plague Year will become the defining account of the second.The story starts with the initial moments of Covids appearance in Wuhan and ends with Joseph Bidens inauguration in an America ravaged by well over 400,000 deaths - a mortality already some ten times worse than US combat deaths in the entire Vietnam War.This is an anguished, furious memorial to a year in which all of Americas great strengths - its scientific knowledge, its great civic and intellectual institutions, its spirit of voluntarism and community - were brought low, not by a terrifying new illness alone, but by political incompetence and cynicism on a scale for which there has been no precedent.With insight, sympathy, clarity and rage, The Plague Year allows the reader to see the unfolding of this great tragedy, talking with individuals on the front line, bringing together many moving and surprising stories and painting a devastating picture of a country literally and fatally misled.Maddening and sobering - as comprehensive an account of the first year of the pandemic as weve yet seenKirkus

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower comes a fascinating book about religion in America, about the passions, triumphs, and failures of the life of faith, revealing stories of grace and despair, sexual scandal and attempted murder. "Insightful...vivid...beautifully rendered stories." Chicago TribuneLawrence Wrights Saints and Sinners are Jimmy Swaggart, who preached a hellfire gospel with rock n roll abandon before he was caught with a, prostitute in a seedy motel; Anton LaVey, the kitsch-loving, gleefully fraudulent founder of the First Church of Satan; Madalyn Murray OHair, whose litigious atheism sometimes resembled a brand of faith; Matthew Fox, the Dominican priest who has aroused the fury of the Vatican for dismissing the doctrine of original sin and denouncing the church as a dysfunctional family; Walker Railey, the rising star of Dallass Methodist church, who, at the pinnacle of his success, was suspected of attempting to murder his wife; and Will Campbell, the eccentric liberal Southern Baptist preacher whose challenges to established ways of thinking have made him a legend in his own time.

Thirty never-before-collected essaysmany of them profilesby the Pulitzer Prizewinning and bestselling author of The Looming Tower, Going Clear, and The Plague Year. These brilliant pieces reveal the broad spectrum of Wrights cultural and political observations over the past thirty-five years.Spanning more than thirty-five years of Lawrence Wrights reporting for The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Rolling Stone, and other magazines, these pieces remind us what a brilliant observer Wright has been of institutions, of political maneuverings, and of peopledangerous, eccentric, or beloved.Some of the essays included:ORPHANS OF JONESTOWN (1993): A profile of Jim Joness three sons who, following the Jonestown massacre, were left alone in a society uncomprehending of their experience.A RAPISTS HOMECOMING (1995): The ethical dilemma of a prison therapist, concerned that her patientabout to be releasedcould attack again.A LIVING DOLL (1988): A very personal column on how the author relates to his 5-year-old daughter through her toys.THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD BRAUTIGAN (1985): An incisive look at the 1960s and 1970s literary icon.SPACE CADET (1981): How a sanitary engineer combined her expertise and career with her love of space exploration and NASA.THE ELEPHANT IN THE COURTOOM (2022): Should animals have legal rights?And many others: A profile of the great spitball pitcher, Gaylord Perry; a look at how a Pentecostal Texas cattle farmer and an orthodox rabbi from Jerusalem came together over the End of Days; a 2006 essay detailing an attack in Gaza that mirrors the tragedies occurring today; a profile of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi; one of Jimmy Carter; and a group of essays that deal with Wrights life as a father.This is an important collection that will demand attention, and a stirring overview of an extraordinary career.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower comes an intimate memoir of one mans coming-of-age, and a universal story of the American experience of two crucial decades. "A wonderfully readable, thoroughly absorbing memoir of a twenty-five-year span of wrenching change." The Philadelphia InquirerWe first meet Larry Wright in 1960. He is thirteen and moving with his family to Dallas, the essential city of the New World just beginning to rise across the southern rim of the United States. As we follow him through the next two decadesthe civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the devastating assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the sexual revolution, the crisis of Watergate, and the emergence of Ronald Reaganwe relive the pivotal and shocking events of those crowded years.Lawrence Wright has written the autobiography of a generation, giving back to us with stunning force the feelings of those turbulent times when the euphoria of Kennedys America would come to its shocking end.

A DEADLY VIRUS. QUARANTINE. A WORLD IN LOCKDOWN. THE THRILLER THAT PREDICTED IT ALL. THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFlies thrillingly, eerily close to realityGuardianThis page-turner... is riveting and spookily anticipates much that has unfolded in realitySunday TimesA race-against-time thriller, as one man must find the origin and cure for a new killer virus that has brought the world to its knees.At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with a mysterious fever. When Dr Henry Parsons - microbiologist and epidemiologist - travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe.As international tensions rise and governments enforce unprecedented measures, Henry finds himself in a race against time to track the source and find a cure - before its too late . . .***WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:If you have a desire to really understand what is going on in the world right now, this is a novel that you cannot afford to miss!Well-written and fast-paced. Most of all utterly, scarily, believable.