102 Minutes
The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers
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4.4 • 221 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"102 Minutes does for the September 11 catastrophe what Walter Lord did for the Titanic in his masterpiece, A Night to Remember . . . Searing, poignant, and utterly compelling."—Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Army at Dawn
Hailed upon publication as an instant classic, the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction is now available in a revised edition to honor the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
At 8:46 a.m. that morning, fourteen thouosand people were inside the World Trade Center just starting their workdays, but over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages. Of the millions of words written about this wrenching day, most were told from the outside looking in. New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn draw on hundreds of interviews with rescuers and survivors, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts to tell the story of September 11 from the inside looking out.
Dwyer and Flynn have woven an epic and unforgettable account of the struggle, determination, and grace of the ordinary men and women who made 102 minutes count as never before.
102 Minutes is a 2005 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawn from thousands of radio transcripts, phone messages, e-mails and interviews with eyewitnesses, this 9/11 account comes from the perspective of those inside the World Trade Center from the moment the first plane hit at 8:46 a.m. to the collapse of the north tower at 10:28 a.m. The stories are intensely intimate, and they often stir gut-wrenching emotions. A law firm receptionist quietly eats yogurt at her desk seconds before impact. Injured survivors, sidestepping debris and bodies, struggle down a stairwell. A man trapped on the 88th floor leaves a phone message for his fianc e: "Kris, there's been an explosion.... I want you to know my life has been so much better and richer because you were in it." Dwyer and Flynn, New York Times writers, take rescue agencies to task for rampant communications glitches and argue that the towers' faulty design helped doom those above the affected floors ("Their fate had been sealed nearly four decades earlier, when... fire stairs were eliminated as a wasteful use of valuable space"). In doing so, the authors frequently draw parallels to similar safety oversights aboard the ill-fated Titanic nearly 90 years before. Their reporting skills are exceptional; readers experience the chaos and confusion that unfolded inside, in grim, painstaking detail. B&w photos.
Customer Reviews
great read but illustrations are too low resolution
Great book but all the illustrations and maps are too loe on resolution. when magnified the text and designations are unreadable. So far every book i bought had this problem. Why is beyond me. Please change this.
A sense of closure
Finally, ten years after I experienced 9-11 as a New Yorker, watching the Towers burn from miles uptown, I know something of what it must have been like inside them that September day. I miss them, I miss the world before they fell. I grieve for the families that lost loved ones. I can finally move on, thanks to this book.
True tragedy
A thorough and honest account weaving timelines, personal stories and details into a full immersion of the attack on the WTC.