According to Hewitt, “The one book everyone ought to read who has lived the past quarter century: Lawrence Wright’s ‘The Looming Tower.’”
What a reading list! And such an honor to be on it. https://t.co/ZkuAgJNV4M
— Lawrence Wright (@lawrence_wright) August 20, 2022
For the past 17 years, the New York Times has released its top 10 books of the year. Lawrence Wright has made it on the list twice in that time, once for Looming Tower and once for Thirteen Days.
So many great books passed me by, and many of my favorite authors are represented here. Honored to be among them. https://t.co/h273qaWqt3
— Lawrence Wright (@lawrence_wright) August 3, 2022
In the weeks leading up to the March 13 announcement of the 2013 NBCC award winners, the National Book Critics Circle’s blog is highlighting the thirty finalists. NBCC board member Alex Abramovich offered an appreciation of Lawrence Wright's nonfiction finalist, Going Clear.
TIME magazine ranks Going Clear at number 7 on its list of the top ten nonfiction books of 2013. Reviewer Lev Grossman calls the book a “relentlessly researched, skillfully presented work.”
Dan Kois, Hanna Rosin, and Meghan O’Rourke all read Going Clear for this installment of Slate’s Audio Book Club.
In the April 2013 edition of The New York Review of Books, Diane Johnson calls Going Clear an “evenhanded, chilling … investigation” of the Church of Scientology.
Wright … seems to have a particular ability to understand and explain issues related to religion, recovered memory, fanaticism, and deviance—and the nerve to withstand objections and threats.
The San Francisco Examiner says Fallaci’s “personality and wit are pure theatrical gold.” Berkeleyside calls the play “distinctive and thought provoking,” agreeing that “Oriana Fallaci’s brilliant personality is fascinatingly presented.”
Associated Press’s Nahal Toosi raves about Going Clear, going on to say the book “is a carefully written account, detached and with little sense of outrage apparent from the author's point of view... But that step-by-step, cautious approach adds to the book's value. Wright obviously understands that letting his findings speak for themselves is enough.”
Despite the book’s release in the United Kingdom being held up for legal reasons, The Guardian’s Sukhdev Sandhu “applauds an eye-opening account of America's most controversial religion.”
According to Sandhu, “the book is diligently researched, calmly expository, and full of fascinating side-stories.”
Cover of Sunday’s New York Times Book Review features Going Clear.
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