BOOK REVIEW: THE LOOMING TOWER. AL-QAEDA'S ROAD TO 9/11.

Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New York Times and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda's Road to 9/11". This excellent tome is a historical review of what lead to the awful loss of 3000 lives in the Twin Towers plane attacks in New York in September 2001 and the general view of radical Islamists around the world and their hatred of the West, particularly America. The title comes from a Quranic verse which was quoted in a speech bin Laden made during the attacks to his followers - "Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower."

Whilst the subject matter is going to be complicated because of the worldwide dispersal of the main players and the overall feel of the story will be sinister, Lawrence Wright does a fantastic job of keeping your interest in a series of events which I feel we should all at least attempt to understand. His research is excellent and he is able to give greatly detailed descriptions of both the Arabic fundamentalists and the American FBI and CIA characters. Very personal details are revealed which shed light on the deeply felt beliefs of both sides of the fight.
I never felt that he was stretching out the story - every detail is informative and relevant. Although essentially a series of increasingly violent events starting in Egypt with the Islamist intellectual Sayyid Qutb's book "Milestones" and leading to the bombing of the World Trade Center several years before the plane attacks, Mr Wright stays with the central characters which aids the understanding of what is going on over the world stage.

I would strongly recommend this book as the first port of call for anyone who is interested in knowing their place in the world currently. I cannot imagine a more authoritative work on the subject.


Sadly, even though we know more through reading books such as this, it seems that we that we know less. Such a shame.

Reviewed 25/OCTOBER/2010 by LordBeanpod@GMail.com

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Paranormal Podcast review by Mark Woods.

Jim Harold is the host with the most ghost on the Paranormal Podcast.com!

I first listened to this podcast back in 2007, it now being October 2010, which goes some way to show that he's kept at least one listener happy!

Having been introduced to Fortean research by the magazine Fortean Times in the late 90s I was pleased to discover this broadcast. For those who don't know Charles Fort is the father of "forteana" or unexplained phenomena. He spent many years in the early 1900s researching scientific literature in the New York Public Library and the British Museum Library, marshalled his evidence and set forth his philosophy in The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents.

Jim Harold interviews many interesting and varied guests on this show. Some examples include Dr Bob Curran, a personal favourite, who is genuinely knowledgeable about many strange subjects including vampire mythology around the world and tales of the undead. I have also heard Annie Wilder talk about Road Ghost stories and Tom Ogden talking about Hauntings in Hotels. Subjects range from UFOs (which I personally find a more dubious area of discussion), alien big cats such as panthers in the UK and advanced science used by the Nazis.

What I like about Jim's approach is that he has the necessary unbiased approach which is required for the listener to decide for them self. His production values are high with audio crisp and audible unlike a lot of more amateur podcasts.

If you liked the Twilight Zone (if you're as old as me!) and enjoy a little "strange" I would not hesitate to recommend Jim Harold's "Paranormal Podcast" at www.Paranormalpodcast.com" - it is after all free!

Recently Jim has teamed up with an American TV reporter by the name of Clayton Morris and produces a weekly video version of the podcast which is available on Youtube.com for free - again recommended but theses two obviously like UFO reports a lot and much of the content concerns that field.

9/10

Reviewed 21/OCT/2010 by LordBeanpod@GMail.com