A New York Times Bestseller
New York Times reporter Dean E. Murphy presents vivid eyewitness accounts of 9/11 by people from all walks of life. Poignant vignettes capture the grief, rage an fear that gripped the nation.
Everyone has a story to tell about where they were when they first learned of the September 11 attacks. New York Times reporter Dean Murphy has gathered together first-person accounts of people working in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as rescue workers and eyewitnesses. And while the magnitude of what happened that day is still hard to grasp no matter how many times one sees news footage of the tower's collapse, Murphy's technique brings the reader closer to understanding what it meant to the people who lived through it. The detail with which the interviewed subjects discuss what they went through is astonishing: a high-school student a block away is told to keep practicing the cha-cha while the towers collapse; a woman saves her own life by defying her coworkers pleadings to stay in the office and await further instructions; an office worker forgets to grind his coffee the night before and, as a result, is late enough to avoid certain death. While the stories mount, one human being after another witnessing unspeakable horror, the effect is not unlike walking along the Washington, D.C., Vietnam War Memorial: all that personal information, all those names, all that loss. But as good memorials do, it jolts the observer into a deeper, more personal understanding of human events. --John Moe

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Shocking, humbling, and human:

The book is presented as a series of short recollections by people of all walks of life; from an immigrant on his first day on the job, to executives making decisions that would save their lives.
There are many stories relating unfathomable horrors wiped away by the collapse of the towers. However, most stories are about the strength of the will to survive, the bond we share that allow us to care for perfect strangers, and amazing luck.
Unfiltered, raw, and a fosters an appreciation for life.

More Informative than the news:

I found that this book provided a sense of what really happened than what I saw on T.V. While the news gave you all the facts and data, this author wrote interviews he took from people who were actually in the WTC, Pentagon, and those in surronding buildings. After reading this I finally had a sense of how people reacted during the horrific events.

Sept.11:

The book is pretty good in a lot of parts. When you read this book it makes you sad at times because of the terrible things that happen. Like many people dying, the World Trade Centers falling, families losing loved ones, etc. It is interesting to read about what wrote from their point of view. It is a good book for those who like to learn about history. To see what happened on that day. The book tells about different people find a safe way to exit the buildings or to jump out of the window if they had no... more info

Don't Miss This Book:

This book tells the personal stories of a variety of people in New York, young and old, at the time the planes hit the World Trade Center. Each story is three to four pages long, which makes for easy reading. Each is well written and filled with emotion. I was truly on the edge of my seat reading some of these stories, even though I knew the end of their story (obviously they survived to tell about it). Why isn't this a best-seller?

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