The 20 best 9/11 books
On the eve of the terrorist attacks' 10th anniversary, the BBC Today programme's Justin Webb, commentator Pankaj Mishra and the Guardian's South Asia correspondent Jason Burke pick the most resonant responsesFri 2 Sep 2011 23.01 BST First published on Fri 2 Sep 2011 23.01 BST
Debunking 9/11 Myths
by David Dunbar and Brad ReaganWhy are conspiracy theories about 9/11 so annoying? I suppose it is the wilfulness of the delusion: life is hard enough without adding to the upset with suppositions of evil plots on the part of those one should be able to trust. The main issue is the toppling of the twin towers; how could it have been possible without some evil plot involving insurance payments and internal bombs to melt the metal? Unhinged folk will disregard this book but it is compelling if you really are given to ask whether what seemed to happen actually did. JWPhotograph: Amy Sancetta/AP
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterThe Looming Tower
by Lawrence WrightA well-deserved Pulitzer prize winner. It’s a potted history of how the world reached the point where the 9/11 plot could be hatched, the players and their motivations. It’s tautly written and has enough anecdote to lighten the gloomy load. For me, the most illuminating pages deal with the weird psychosexual hang-ups of some of the jihadists, their contempt for women suffused with a genuine fear of being seduced. I spent eight years reporting from the US for the BBC and I never read a more compelling account of the circumstances that brought us to 9/11. JWPhotograph: Public Domain Share on Facebook Share on TwitterFalling Man
by Don DeLillo“It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night.” So begins this slightly self-conscious but ultimately successful attempt to recreate in fiction the horror of the day and the days that followed. Boy, there were some ghastly attempts at 9/11 fiction and some utterly fatuous suggestions that it was somehow too difficult to approach in a novel (do people not write about wars?), but this work overcame all the pitfalls and pratfalls and manages to be heartfelt without too much sentimentality. JWPhotograph: AP
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterSometime Lofty Towers
A Photographic Memorial of the World Trade CentreThis is a picture book. More before than after and more beautiful than shocking. But it reminds us of the stunning vista of the New York skyline and the place the World Trade Centre had at its heart. Ten years on, it still seems strange to think the towers are not there any more and such a calamity befell them and those who were in them that morning. You can look at this book and wish that the last decade was a nightmare from which we might wake up. Will they always be the world’s most famous tallest buildings? JWPhotograph: Popperfoto Share on Facebook Share on TwitterSaturday
by Ian McEwanComfortable life meets violent crisis in the shadow of 9/11 and the Iraq war (the Saturday in question is 15 February 2003, the day of the anti-war march in London). McEwan’s book was widely read and admired in the US – many thought it surpassed any homegrown efforts. No twisted metal, no choking clouds of toxic smoke and no falling bodies but the drift of Saturday is clear, humane and important. It is a book that teaches how we can live in altered times and it never lets go of the strange fact of our capacity to endure and cope and still have perfectly cheerful Saturdays in spite of everything. JWPhotograph: Martin Godwin Share on Facebook Share on TwitterPakistan: Eye of the Storm
by Owen Bennett JonesBefore 9/11, who cared about Pakistan? Well-informed people did of course but the nation that has become so pivotal in our understanding of global terrorism was not exactly top of most reading lists; candidate Bush famously couldn’t name Pakistan’s leader when asked about him in an interview before the 2000 election. That is no longer acceptable and if Pakistan is a mystery to you this is where to start. Owen (full disclosure: I’ve known him for 30 years) is a clear-minded and serious person. His book is on college reading lists all over America and deservedly so. JWPhotograph: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterImperial Life in the Emerald City
by Rajiv ChandrasekaranThis is a post- 9/11 book, focused on the Iraq war and the madness that followed it. It is a work of genius, frankly; part black comedy and part gut-wrenching tragedy, it chronicles in lapidary prose what can only be described as the surreal uselessness of at least some of the folks President Bush sent to Iraq. It is set in the Green Zone in Baghdad but it resonates much more widely. Want to know why Obama steered clear of Libya and would like to steer clear of any future foreign involvement? Read it. Post 9/11 American foreign policy is hung out to dry. Truly a book that shaped the modern world. JWPhotograph: Ali Yussef/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on TwitterAfter 9/11: An E-book Anthology
New YorkerThis new ebook contains material from the last decade of New Yorker articles. The magazine is one of America’s great civilised institutions and the pieces serve as a reminder that the America attacked on 9/11 was, for its many faults, a culturally complex and humane society capable of reflecting humanity at its best. The New Yorker (edited by David Remnick) is the home of America’s liberal intelligensia and wants, you feel, to be clever and counterintuitive. But on the other hand it must have passionate allegiance to the city. For me, the balance works: the tension improves the product. JWPhotograph: Robin London/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on TwitterThe Case for Democracy
by Natan SharanskyYes it was George Bush’s favourite book for a bit but scoff ye not; it is a powerfully written polemic setting out why open cultures are better than closed ones and why the freedoms under attack by radical Islamists and others are worth defending and celebrating. The central point, that open societies need to protect themselves and be confident about their superiority, is well made. Sharansky’s career as an Israeli politician has made him enemies but the fact remains that in the Soviet Union he was persecuted and imprisoned for his belief in democracy: he has form and standing. JWPhotograph: EPA
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterThe Rational Optimist
by Matt RidleyThis is the book for the next 10 years. Much of humanity’s thinking about itself in recent times has been pretty gloomy. The attacks of 9/11 were ghastly and the response was almost as depressing. But still, we have Matt Ridley to point out to us that in many respects human beings are rather good at improving their lot. In spite of the horror of the last decade there are reasons to be cheerful if we learn to trust and to trade. JWPhotograph: Public Domain Share on Facebook Share on TwitterStandard Operating Procedure
by Philip Gourevitch & Errol Morris A brilliant reconstruction of events in the US's notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Harrowing and dispassionate – not an easy combination. JBPhotograph: AP
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterThe Wasted Vigil
by Nadeem Aslam A heartbreaking novel set amid the unresolved and probably unresolvable antagonisms of post-Taliban Afghanistan. PMPhotograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on TwitterThe Fear of Barbarians
by Tzvetan Todorov A distinguished philosopher reclaims the Enlightenment from its self-proclaimed defenders and assorted Islamophobes. PMPhotograph: LYNNE SLADKY/AP
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterZeitoun
by David Eggers Set in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, this is a vivid account of an American Muslim, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, whose attempts to help out his neighbours by paddling his canoe through the flood waters, ended with him being besieged by a cruel and neglectful government. Zeitoun, pictured here on Dart Street in New Orleans, was detained and arrested as a suspected terrorist. PMPhotograph: Julie Dermansky/Polaris Share on Facebook Share on TwitterSecret Son
by Laila Lalami A prescient and insightful fiction, set in Morocco, about aspirations and resentments that the “Arab spring” has made better known. PMPhotograph: Rafael Marchante /Reuters
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterMurder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
by Ian Buruma A nuanced report on Europe’s unaccommodated and distrusted minority, and an antidote to the poisonous canard known as “Eurabia”. The book centres on the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was shot dead in Amsterdam, on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004. In this scene from his film, Submission, about a Muslim woman forced into a violent marriage, raped by a relative and brutally punished for adultery, an actress displays Quranic verses painted on her body over what is meant to look like whip lacerations. PMPhotograph: Thomas Kist/AP
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterDescent Into Chaos: The World's Most Unstable Region and the Threat to Global Security
by Ahmed Rashid An impassioned investigation by a veteran reporter. JBPhotograph: John Moore/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on TwitterA Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America
by Malise Ruthven Superb overview of the evolution, attitudes and ideology behind radical Islam. The results can be seen in this picture from Pakistan, in which protesters burn a US flag in protest at remarks by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. JBPhotograph: Shakil Adil/AP
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterJihad: The Trail of Political Islam
by Gilles Kepel All the history – and brilliant economic analysis – you could hope to read. Very good on the role of the lower middle class and successive failure of various ideologies in the Middle East. JB Photograph: Abid Katib/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on TwitterThe Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda
by Peter Bergen Excellent analysis from one of the best US-based analysts and reporters. JBPhotograph: AP
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