Today’s blog post will be a fun exercise.
Big disclaimer: the following books do NOT, to the best of my knowledge, currently exist, but could some day. Also listed are the requirements a hypothetical author would need in order to make these books credible. Commissioning editors are free to take these ideas and run with them, provided they put my name in the acknowledgements. At present, I have neither the access nor the foundational knowledge to write these books myself. At best, I have a clear vision for them.
So without further ado, here is a list of 6 books that do not currently exist but absolutely should.
1 Queen Elizabeth II: A Life
What’s It About and What’s Needed: The premise is simple. This book would be the authorised biography of the late Elizabeth Windsor, Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Such a book would be given the seal of approval by her son, King Charles III, and use all materials related to the Queen’s reign currently under lock and seal in Windsor Castle. At present, such a book has not been commissioned by Buckingham Palace. Several fine unauthorised works have been written, but are lacking that final secret sauce. The hypothetical author would interview not only the Queen’s family, but her former ministers and Palace staff to corroborate the official archived documents. That the book would be free of rumours, scandal-mongering, and other tell-all bullshit normal attached to books about the royal family goes without saying.
2 Covid-19: The Complete Story
What It’s About and What’s Needed: This book would tell the definitive story of the coronavirus pandemic with sufficient levels of hindsight to make it a proper work of history. Everything from the first reported outbreaks in China to the vaccine production would be covered. In order for this book to be authentic, the author would need to be a virology expert and a skilled non-fiction writer, a tall order indeed. The materials they would need include whatever verifiable evidence from China can be located (which might well be impossible), the response of prominent government officials in multiple countries, access to what plans were in place from the WHO, access to the vaccine producers, not to mention the skill and nuance to navigate the ocean of misinformation that flooded our minds during the pandemic.
In my current conception, the book would share similarities to the documentary works of Ken Burns. Burns’s talent is to take nebulous subjects with no clear protagonist, like baseball and Prohibition, and tell the whole story intercut with interviews from appropriate experts. Obviously Burns is a documentarian rather than an author but similar books exist such as Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies, the definitive “biography” of cancer.
3 Hogwarts Redux: A New Beginning
What It’s About and What’s Needed: The premise of this one is simple. Instead of a sequel to Harry Potter, this 7-part book series by J.K. Rowling (and nobody else) would be a new story set at Hogwarts. The main characters would have little or nothing to do with the old characters beyond a few carefully chosen relationships. Perhaps these hypothetical new characters would be sorted into Hufflepuff. Perhaps the villain could be a Gryffindor. Maybe Harry Potter could appear as a mentor to the new hero like Dumbledore was to Harry in the original series. Unlike the other entries on this list, the requirements are straightforward: inspiration from J.K. Rowling, enough time to make it work, and no expectation that it will compete with, or outdo, the Harry Potter books.
4 The Beatles: The Final Word of History
What It’s About and What’s Needed: Ugh, another Beatles book? Why? Good question. Here’s the thing: though there’s been an ocean of ink spilled about the band, including some on this website, I’ll be bold enough to say that there’s never been a truly good narrative non-fiction book about the Beatles. In theory, the books serving this purpose are the still on-going The Beatles: All These Years by Mark Lewisohn, the closest person to an official Beatles historian that exists. However, Lewisohn’s approach is taking way too long. Only Volume 1 of 3 is out and Volume 1 is already 1000 pages. I’ve yet to read it, so I won’t pass judgement on that book, but most people who aren’t Beatles fans won’t be able to swallow a 3000 page work of history on a subject they don’t care about. What I’m thinking of is a single-volume work of history that’s less like Robert Caro’s enormous (and endless) biographies and more like Doris Kearns Goodwin’s ensemble biographies. The proposed book would condense Lewisohn’s research, have the direct involvement of either the surviving Beatles or Apple Corps, and synthesise previous disparate accounts to make a true work of history. Lewisohn’s book might be the book of record, but it might severely test the casual reader. At a minimum, Lewisohn’s books, when they eventually come out, need to be abridged into a single volume.
5 Development Hell, Why Movies Take Forever To Get Made
What It’s About and What’s Needed: Have you ever wondered why it takes so long for movies to get made? For example, as of 2023, there are five (and hopefully no more) Indiana Jones movies. The first movie was released in 1981, the second in 1984, the third in 1989, the fourth in 2008, and the fifth and final in 2023. Audiences waited three years, then five, then nineteen, and then another fifteen for a “complete” story. Admittedly there wasn’t a plan to release five over an unthinkable 42 year period, but the long-development times leave you wondering: why do movies take so long? It’s so common in Hollywood that it has an official name, Development Hell. The proposed book would be about how Development Hell has come to be, why it can’t go away, how it stymies so many projects, and what might be done about it. The author for such a work would need to be embedded in the movie industry, know exactly how development hell works, have contacts at dozens of major studios, and know all the relevant actors, directors, and production people to make the story interesting. The trouble with Development Hell as a subject is that it has no character arc, no obvious history, and no beginning, middle, and end. Before starting, the author would most likely need to find a representative sample of movies frozen in Development Hell to serve as the concrete case studies to ground the reader’s focus.
6 Harvard: A History
What It’s About and What’s Needed: If the recent college admissions cheating scandal reveals anything, it’s that people are willing to go above and beyond what’s morally right to get their kids into elite colleges. The stakes are too high and the rewards are too great. Universities like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge have a disproportionately high impact on the progress of civilization. Famous names all tend to pass through these institutions and professors at these schools are the ones writing the books I keep reviewing. Therefore I believe it is fair to ask: how and why is this the case? Why does everyone want to send their kid to Harvard and why does going to Harvard work? What is the advantage at being taught at Harvard and not the local college? The book doesn’t have to be about Harvard exactly, though the institution is storied enough to warrant a major work of history about it. To produce a book like what I’m thinking, the author will not only need to be intimately familiar with the institution in question, they also need to know about how winner-take-all dynamics emerge. Again, the interesting thing about Harvard or similar universities isn’t the history but why they produce the people that they do. So at the very least a passing knowledge of network theory, winner-take-all dynamics and urban planning will be needed to explain this phenomenon in depth. The institution makes the rock star just as much as a rock star comes though an institution.
Conclusion
If these books exist, I haven’t come across them or the author who wrote them did so in a manner that made them mediocre. Nevertheless, I believe they should exist if for no other reason than future generations need to know about this stuff.
Our era of excess information makes it all too easy for important things to slip through the net.