Author Guide · Lisanne Swart
Books Written by Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright has spent over four decades writing his way into closed worlds — a false-memory court case, al-Qaeda’s rise, the Church of Scientology, his own home state of Texas, a pandemic he’d already been researching before it arrived. He’s best known for The Looming Tower, but the rest of his bibliography follows the same pattern: pick something opaque and secretive, spend years earning access, and write it in plain, patient prose. Below is his complete bibliography, in order.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 books · 1979–2021 · Updated July 2026
Where to start
His most acclaimed work
The Looming Tower (2006) — Pulitzer Prize winner, and the book most readers mean when they say “Lawrence Wright.”
If you want something shorter first
Remembering Satan (1994) — a tighter, single-case true-crime narrative before his longer institutional investigations.
City Children, Country Summer
Wright’s debut, a work of nonfiction following a program that sent inner-city children to spend summers with volunteer families in the countryside.
In the New World: Growing Up with America, 1960–1984
A memoir tracing Wright’s own coming of age in Texas against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and the decades of American upheaval he grew up inside.
Saints and Sinners
A collection of profiles of American religious figures, ranging from televangelists to cult leaders, an early sign of the sustained interest in belief and institutional power that would define his later work.
Remembering Satan
A true-crime account of a Washington State family torn apart by false memories of satanic ritual abuse, generated under police and therapeutic pressure, and a case study in how conviction can be manufactured rather than discovered.
Twins: And What They Tell Us About Who We Are
A work of popular science exploring twin studies and the long-running nature-versus-nurture debate over what actually shapes human identity.
God’s Favorite
Wright’s first novel, a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and his entanglement with the United States.
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11Start here
Wright’s best-known work traces the origins of al-Qaeda and the years of intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 attacks, built from years of reporting and hundreds of interviews. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2007 and was later adapted into a Hulu television series.
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
An investigation into the Church of Scientology’s history, its Hollywood celebrity connections, and the experiences of former members, built on the same patient, years-long reporting method as The Looming Tower. It was adapted into an HBO documentary of the same name.
Thirteen Days in September
A minute-by-minute account of the 1978 Camp David negotiations between Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat, reconstructing the private conversations that produced the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State
A collection of Wright’s New Yorker reporting on jihadist movements across more than two decades, tracing the throughline from al-Qaeda’s founding to the rise of ISIS.
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State
A personal, reported portrait of Wright’s home state, examining its politics, oil economy, and outsized cultural influence on the rest of the country.
The End of October
Wright’s second novel, a pandemic thriller following an epidemiologist tracking a new virus, largely completed before COVID-19 emerged and drawing on his years of nonfiction research into public health and biological threats.
The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID
A nonfiction reconstruction of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, built from reporting and interviews using the same investigative method as his earlier institutional books.
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