chapter sixteen during the middle years of the first decade of the twenty first century , when the passion for reclaiming the skies in terms of earthly constructions was at its peak , and when the idea of the worlds tallest building had once again captured the general publics imagination , in a way that had not been the case since the manhattan boom years of the 1930s , a semi-humorous coffee table book entitled six easy steps to constructing the worlds tallest building was the unexpected summer best-seller on both sides of the atlantic , briefly propelling its author - a mild-mannered , jobbing architect , appropriately rejoicing under the name of storey - into something of a minor celebrity , much to that individuals obvious bewilderment and discomfort on the several occasions that he was asked to impart further words of wisdom to an eagerly expectant global public in front of the television cameras .