Eight years after the fact, there is still no better resource for understanding the history of militant Islam and the specific events that led to the 9/11 attacks than Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

It is also, unintentionally, a devastating refutation to all the “9/11 was an inside job” kookery that represents a sort mental swine flu pandemic in this country.

Get it if you haven’t read it. If you have children teenaged or older, have them read it as a vital, fascinating history lesson and as an innoculation against Charlie Sheen fever.

It’s available as an audio book as well–probably at your public library.