something different

a suggestion for leisure reading

I am on a tear to clear things out. I won’t come anywhere near emptying our condominium (nor is that the goal) but I will feel better about the stuff we have, including books. As you can imagine, two academics have purchased a lot of books over the years, although we re-homed most of them when we relocated to Annapolis five years ago. It’s reached the point in life, however, I need be realistic about what I might take time to reread so even more of our collection will go to new deserving homes soon.

I want to highlight one of my absolute favorite authors: Lawrence Wright. If you have never read The Looming Towers, you should. As painful as the 9/11 attacks, Wright’s epic discussion of the interplay between Islamic theology interwoven with political modernization in the Middle East uncovers many questions we should have considered decades ago. I don’t know that it would have prevented the horror of that day but his careful study explained why so many seemingly uninteresting details of our actions created passionate hatred within the Islamic community struggling to determine its future as a theology.

If you have never read Wright’s novel Mr. Texas, it’s as good as anything Molly Ivins ever wrote about their mutual home state. The slapdown of both political parties and the entitlement assumptions with which the party faitherful treat Texas voters is chillingly appropriate as we are in the homestretch for this year’s elections. I have a hard time believing Wright’s description wouldn’t apply to most political machines across the country today, shocking as that might sound. Wright is a gifted researcher for his many New Yorker articles but his humor in this novel made tears run down my face—until I thought about the reality of empowering these people to make choices for us with long term implications.

Wright’s study I am devouring right now is The Plague Year. Yes, one might expect me to eschew anything on the bloody pandemic which still infects so many today. But, Wright’s ability (published in December 2020 so we were still in the beginning stages) to introduce a myriad of forces and identify assumptions we made is worth your time. I just began the book this morning but will observe after finishing 15% or so that everyone made a lot of false assumptions at the beginning. The question ought to have been why it took so long for some to begin infusing the data we had into their analyses to continue or to shift courses of action. Instead, in today’s environment Wright identifies missteps and deliberate choices to select what data we used in policy decisions as if it did not affect people long term in a period of tremendous strike and doubt.

But that is how crises almost always proceed, isn’t it? It’s seductive to recreate histories with alternative narratives that often put any of the actors into a far more positive light but we were stumbling until we had data.

My strongest reason for endorsing Wright, however, is his ability to explain extremely complicated converging narratives without judgement. He may offer some irony but like Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Wright clarifies extremely technical scientific material for a layperson to grasp both its evolution and significance. It probably sounds foolish to my engineering readers but I find this skill crucial in any ever less scientifically-focused world. We seem unable to encourage more people into STEM so we need science whisperers all the more. Yes, Rhodes discussed the specifics nuclear physics and described why Niels Bohr’s work was so crucial in the 1920s to scientific advancement that became the basis for Los Alamos’s success twenty-five years later but his emphasis was on the policy implications. Similarly, Wright’s discussions of the intricacies of Islamic theological thought as it played out across various political and religious communities of the world turned out to have similar importance to the Manhattan Project.

Any of Wright’s books are beautifully written while chocked full of content on public policy questions with long-term consequences. I struggle to think of another writer whose work so appeals, though I read a bunch of books annually.

If you’re looking for something to take your mind off the remaining four weeks of mind-numbing political chatter (especially after you vote—please exercise your right to vote as a citizen!), look at Lawrence Wright’s works. They are refreshing, sometimes humorous, always well-written and thought-provoking about consequences we may not see for half a century but are guaranteed to affect our lives or those of our families.

I suspect you can find them via the Libby app, if you don’t want to shell out money. Libby is a tribute to libraries and digitizing reading—all at someone else’s cost rather than yours directly. Many libraries across the country offer Libby. Contact me if you need further detail.

Have you ever read Lawrence Wright? Have you any opinion about The Looming Tower or his New Yorker pieces? Can you recommend someone you find particularly interesting as an author on policy questions? Please, please chime in!! I like Wright as he writes on such a broad segment of public policy at home and abroad but welcome hearing of similar authors.

Thank you for your time today—and any day. Thank you to subscribers, especially. If you find this of value, please feel free to circulate it.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb: New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.

Lawrence Wright, Mr. Texas. New York: Knopf, 2019.

—, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006.

—, The Plague Year. New York: Knopf, 2020.

lawrencewright.com