Since we have found ourselves recently in the midst of what
President Bush calls "a new kind of war," the
bestseller ranking for nonfiction has been affected by a new trend
of interests among readers.
The superb book
Bin Laden : The Man Who Declared War on America , by Yossef Bodansky
was on back-order as of September 11, but then the publisher broke
all industry records and within days made it available once
again.
Even
Germs : Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
, written by New York Times
staff member Judith Miller, was rushed through a second edition,
even though the book's first release was in early September 2001
-- the first run was 15,000 copies, but 115,000 were sold in the
two weeks after 9/11.
The second half of September saw an abrupt surge in readers'
requests for the already-existing-as-of-9/11 books about the World
Trade Center, such as
Divided We Stand
by Dartin (both facts about the towers as well as some social commentary), and
Twin Towers
by Gillespie (facts about the towers and the planning and building
process).
Some post-9/11 productions about the WTC are also
coming out. We plan to review them soon, but we begin only by
highly recommending that you tack the
World Trade Center 2002 Memorial Wall Calendar
on your wall.
Be forewarned that the new book
Twilight Sky : Air Disaster at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon , by Tim Vasquez
leans toward the aviation aspects of September 11, i.e.,
flight information, navigation charts, etc.
Many readers are looking for details about military
technology, and are grabbing Tom Clancy's Guided Tour
books, namely,
Carrier : A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier
and his related
Airborne
and
Marine
books in the series.
Among the books about the repression of women's rights in many
Islamic countries, be careful not to confuse
Price of Honor , by Jan Goodwin
with a book that has a similar title,
The Price of Honor , by David H. Hackworth
. Note that the full title of Goodwin's book is
Price of Honor : Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World
. She has thoroughly investigated the oppression of women in
such countries as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia. Some readers may confuse it with Hackworth's
novel about a fictitious covert military operation, because
Hackworth has been recently making the rounds of TV talk
shows.
In our list of new books about 9/11 ( scroll further down ),
please make note of which titles raise money from sales for
nonprofit and humanitarian causes.
We have also started listing videos below, and will soon add DVD.