SALON

Friday, Apr 19, 2013 2:36 PM UTC

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Amazon wish list

The Boston bombing suspect wanted a Chechnyan dictionary, "Snatch" and books on how to make fake IDs

By

Topics: Boston bombers, Boston Explosions, Boston Marathon, amazon wishlist, Chechnya, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ,

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Amazon wish list

According to an Amazon wish-list registry registered to an email account believed to belong to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect was at one time very interested in making fake IDs and learning how to win friends and influence people. He was also brushing up on his Chechnyan and was hoping someone would buy him a copy of Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

(Politico’s Glenn Thrush found the email. Conservative political blogger Justin Hart found the Amazon registry.)

From beginning to end, the wish list spans a period of just 18 months. The most recent entry dates back to July 8, 2007: “Voice Power: Using Your Voice to Captivate, Persuade and Communicate.” There are also five different books relating to fake ID creation and document fraud — all dated Aug. 27, 2006. And then there’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

Just a few months earlier, Tsarnaev’s ambitions were more historically minded. On June 15, 2006, he added to his wish list a Chechnyan dictionary, “The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule” and “Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya, New Edition.” On the non-Chechnyan front, he craved Suetonius’ “Twelve Caesars,” and Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

He was also hoping someone would buy him Guy Ritchie’s movie “Snatch.”

Tsarnaev died in a shootout Thursday night, so we’ll never know if he meant to apply the lessons in Gibbon’s great work of history on imperial decline to modern Russia or the United States, or both. But judging only by this weird online relic, he seems curious, ambitious and kind of dumb: Who puts five books on how to commit document fraud and make fake IDs on their Amazon wish list?

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? New study suggests if we reduce our intake of animal products by 25%, we can halt climate change
508 points509 points | 182 comments
vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
230 points231 points | 21 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
136 points137 points | 54 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
43 points44 points | 16 comments
vote
Capitalism, not feminism, killed home cooking–and fixing our broken food system is gonna take a lot more than some privileged women embracing “new domesticity”
31 points32 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations