{"title":"Books by Lawrence Wright","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780141029351","title":"The Looming Tower","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING BESTSELLER, NOW AN ACCLAIMED TV SERIES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003ci\u003eThe Looming Tower\u003c\/i\u003e is a thriller. And it's a tragedy, too' \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The most detailed (and thrilling) account we have of the events that led to the destruction of the Twin Towers' \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e, Books of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Possibly the best book yet written on the rise of al-Qaeda ... beautifully written and wonderfully compelling' William Dalrymple\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'We meet some formidable schemers and killers ... fabulists crazed with blood and death' Martin Amis\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201484783794,"sku":"9780141029351","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141029351.jpg?v=1786011573"},{"product_id":"9780141987002","title":"God Save Texas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'This is a funny, pointed love letter to Texas, at once elegiac and clear-eyed' Ben Macintyre, \u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Looming Tower, God Save Texas\u003c\/i\u003e is a journey through the most controversial state in America.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTexas is a Republican state in the heart of Trumpland that hasn't elected a Democrat to a statewide office in more than twenty years; but it is also a state in which minorities already form a majority (including the largest number of Muslim adherents in the United States). The cities are Democrat and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king but Texas now leads California in technology exports and has an economy only somewhat smaller than Australia's.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLawrence Wright has written an enchanting book about what is often seen as an unenchanting place. Having spent most of his life there, while remaining deeply aware of its oddities, Wright is as charmed by Texan foibles and landscapes as he is appalled by its politics and brutality. With its economic model of low taxes and minimal regulation producing both extraordinary growth and striking income disparities, Texas, Wright shows, looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis profound portrait of the state, completed just as Texas battled to rebuild after the devastating storms of summer 2017, not only reflects the United States back as it is, but as it was and as it might be. As much the home of Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson as of J.R., Ross Perot and the Bush family, as filled with magical scenery as with desolate oil-fields and strip-malls, Texas is a bellwether, super-sized mass of contradictions: a life-long study.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56225255489909,"sku":"9780141987002","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141987002_a9fac515-f758-4153-8634-2c229b0f8cbf.jpg?v=1786011149"},{"product_id":"9781472125835","title":"The Terror Years","description":"\u003cp\u003eTen powerful pieces first published in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the Pulitzer Prize-winning \u003ci\u003eThe Looming Tower\u003c\/i\u003e, 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 he's 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301076775285,"sku":"9781472125835","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781472125835_8f374609-da56-4354-88be-b3a55ab0be1b.jpg?v=1786020516"},{"product_id":"9781784165741","title":"The End of October","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA DEADLY VIRUS. QUARANTINE. A WORLD IN LOCKDOWN. THE THRILLER THAT PREDICTED IT ALL. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE INSTANT \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Flies thrillingly, \u003cb\u003eeerily close to reality\u003c\/b\u003e' \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'This \u003cb\u003epage-turner\u003c\/b\u003e... is riveting and spookily anticipates much that has unfolded in reality' \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA 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.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs 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 it's too late . . .\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWHAT READERS ARE SAYING:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'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!'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Well-written and fast-paced. Most of all utterly, scarily, believable.'\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304624763253,"sku":"9781784165741","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781784165741_e9a9f28b-62f7-4be1-b6ff-fb25d7d5b9fa.jpg?v=1786026163"},{"product_id":"9780141998138","title":"The Plague Year","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A virtuoso feat ... a book of panoramic breadth' \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A devastating analysis ... Wright is a master of knitting together complex narratives' \u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust as Lawrence Wright's \u003ci\u003eThe Looming Tower \u003c\/i\u003ebecame the defining account of our century's first devastating event, 9\/11, so \u003ci\u003eThe Plague Year\u003c\/i\u003e will become the defining account of the second.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story starts with the initial moments of Covid's appearance in Wuhan and ends with Joseph Biden's 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is an anguished, furious memorial to a year in which all of America's 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith insight, sympathy, clarity and rage, \u003ci\u003eThe Plague Year \u003c\/i\u003eallows 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Maddening and sobering - as comprehensive an account of the first year of the pandemic as we've yet seen' \u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311577084277,"sku":"9780141998138","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141998138_b9f19f19-b3d7-435b-bdf3-a594f2e3e495.jpg?v=1786011463"},{"product_id":"redemption-1","title":"Redemption","description":"\u003cb\u003eA powerful and startling account of the unsparing connection between a convent of cloistered nuns and the condemned women on Texas’s death row, exploring questions around crime and punishment, faith, and retribution in America as only Lawrence Wright can.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Redemption \u003c\/i\u003egripped me like the best crime novel and left me fundamentally changed. The relationship between two groups of isolated women teaches us the most elusive of values: true empathy.\" —Belle Burden, author of \u003ci\u003eStrangers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the fall of 2014, Deacon Ronnie Lastovica visited a women’s prison in Gatesville, Texas and gave communion to the women on death row. Moved by the meeting, the Deacon vowed to return weekly, but he knew he couldn’t help these women alone. He called upon the Sisters of Mary Morning Star, a group of contemplative nuns in Waco, Texas, to visit the seven condemned women with him. What follows is an incredible story of a spiritual alliance between two groups of women who, though they couldn't seem more different, are living uniquely similar lives. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLawrence Wright takes us into the death row unit, laying bare their stories. Some of the women in prison wrestle with guilt over the suffering they’ve caused; others fiercely maintain their innocence. As Wright learns more about their cases, unethical police practices and improper forensic methods cast doubt on whether some of these women actually committed the crimes for which they’ll pay the ultimate price. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClear-eyed and rousing, layered and morally complex, \u003ci\u003eRedemption \u003c\/i\u003eexplores ideas of retribution, spirituality, and the question of absolution.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499247575413,"sku":"9780593805084","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780593805084.jpg?v=1786694565"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-lawrence-wright.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}