Lawrence Wright has narrated 6 audiobooks on Listento.it by 4 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 56 ratings. The most-rated is The Looming Tower.
The Looming Tower
Summary
A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI's counterterrorism chief, John O'Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal. As these lives unfold, we see revealed: The crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden The birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole O'Neill's heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers Prince Turki's transformation from bin Laden's ally to his enemy The failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; O'Neill's high-wire act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal life - he was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others' existence - and the nitty-gritty of turf battles among US intelligence agencies. Brilliantly conceived and written, The Looming Tower draws all elements of the story into a galvanizing narrative that adds immeasurably to our understanding of how we arrived at September 11, 2001. The richness of its new information, and the depth of its perceptions, can help us deal more wisely and effectively with the continuing terrorist threat.
©2006 Lawrence Wright (P)2017 Random House Audio
The Terror Years
Summary
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 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; and 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 our government failed to handle the situation.
©2016 Lawrence Wright (P)2016 Random House Audio
God Save Texas
Summary
A New York Times Notable Book National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist An NPR Best Book of the Year God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America. It is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become - and reveals how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.
©2018 Lawrence Wright (P)2018 Random House Audio
White Collar Criminal Law Explained
Summary
We are surrounded by real-life stories of white-collar crime, with pharmaceutical executives going to jail for their roles in the opioid crisis, titans of Wall Street prosecuted for insider trading and securities fraud, and senior government officials charged with fraud and corruption. But although it’s widespread, a fascinating aspect of white-collar crime is just how blurry its boundaries are. In 24 lessons, consider the characteristics of white-collar crime that set it apart from other areas of criminal law. Early lessons offer you a foundational understanding of the nature and tools of federal white-collar prosecutions, including the role of federal prosecutors, federal grand juries, subpoenas and search warrants, and the federal criminal justice system. At the heart of this series: in-depth looks at the most common white-collar offenses, including mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, money laundering, insider trading, and extortion. Professor Eliason’s legal expertise in the area of white-collar criminal law, combined with his background as an assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia, transforms what would be, in lesser hands, dry legal lectures into eye-opening investigations into some of the greatest crimes in US history, involving infamous figures such as financial fraudster Bernie Madoff and former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 The Great Courses (P)2020 The Teaching Company, LLC
Thirteen Days in September
Summary
A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, 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 and his acclaimed journalistic skill, Lawrence Wright takes us through each of the 13 days of the Camp David conference, illuminating the issues that have made the problems of the region so intractable, as well as exploring the scriptural narratives that continue to frame the conflict. In addition to his in-depth accounts of the lives of the three leaders, Wright draws vivid portraits of other fiery personalities who were present at Camp David - including Moshe Dayan, Osama el-Baz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski - as they work furiously behind the scenes. Wright also explores the significant role played by Rosalynn Carter. What emerges is a riveting view of the making of this unexpected and so far unprecedented peace. Wright exhibits the full extent of Carter's persistence in pushing an agreement forward, the extraordinary way in which the participants at the conference - many of them lifelong enemies - attained it, and the profound difficulties inherent in the process and its outcome, not the least of which has been the still unsettled struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In Thirteen Days in September, Wright gives us a resonant work of history and reportage that provides both a timely revisiting of this important diplomatic triumph and an inside look at how peace is made.
©2014 Lawrence Wright (P)2014 Random House Audio
Seeds of Kindness...
Summary
Kindness was a lesson worth learning as a child in the 1950s and 1960s - and it is more relevant than ever as the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest. Jim Boeglin draws on the lessons he learned as a child and throughout adulthood to spread that message in this book of poetry. Much of the collection was written during “shelter in place” restrictions in the spring and summer of 2020, which was also when protests raged throughout the United States to prevent racial injustice in the aftermath of the brutal murder of George Floyd. It was a time of stress, sorrow, and pain in the world - especially for minorities, and the millions of coronavirus victims and the families of those infected. It was also a challenging time for first responders, healthcare workers, and others on the front lines of treatment. Ponder the impact of being kind during a time of global crisis and plant seeds to spread positivity as you read this collection.
©2020 Jim Boeglin (P)2020 Jim Boeglin