Product Description

At 8.46 am on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people were inside the Twin Towers in New York - reading emails, making calls, eating croissants...over the next 102 minutes each would become part of a drama for the ages, one truly witnessed only by the people who lived through it - until now. Of the millions of words written about that unforgettable day, most have been from outsiders. "New York Times" reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn have taken the more revealing approach - reporting solely from the perspective of those inside the towers, "102 Minutes" is the epic count of ordinary men and women, and includes incredible stories of bravery, courage, and overcoming unbelievable odds including the construction manager and his colleagues who pried open the doors and saved dozens of people in the north tower; the police officer who was a few blocks away, filing his retirement papers, but grabbed his badge and sprinted to the buildings; the window washer stuck in a lift fifty floors up who used a squeegee to escape; and the secretaries who led an elderly man down eighty-nine flights of stairs. Chance encounters, moments of grace, a shout across an office shaped these minutes, marking the border between fear and solace, staking the boundary between life and death. Crossing a bridge of voices to go inside the infernos seeing cataclysm and herosim one person at a time, Dwyer and Flynn tell the affecting, authoritative saga of the men and women - the 12,000 who escaped and the 2,749 who perished - as they made 102 minutes count as never before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66500 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
"* 'a heart-stopping, meticulous account... a fitting tribute to the people caught up in one of the great dramas of our time... a cathartic release' *York Times * 'heartbreaking and inspiring' - Boston Herald * 'With its tragic and preordained conclusion, the book becomes a tearjerker in the most essential way' - Entertainment Weekly * 'writing in a way that confers dignity on each subject... This is one book that will stay with readers for a long time' - People"

From the Publisher
A massive New York Times bestseller: The untold story of the fight to survive inside the twin towers

From the Back Cover
At 8.46 am on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people were inside the Twin Towers in New York. To them it was just the start of another routine day at work. Over the next 102 minutes each would become part of a drama that changed the world forever.

Of the millions of words written about that unforgettable day, most have been by outsiders. But New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn report solely from the perspective of those struggling to survive inside the towers; 102 Minutes is the epic account of ordinary men and women finding the bravery and courage to overcome unbelievable odds.

Fateful split second decisions, chance encounters in smoke-filled stairwells, the heroism of the emergency services who climbed up as everyone else was coming down -- this is the authoritative account of the men and women in the World Trade Centre– the 12,000 who escaped and the 2,749 who perished.

'A heart-stopping, meticulous account ... a fitting tribute to the people caught up in one of the great dramas of our time ... a cathartic release' New York Times
'Insightful, compassionate and unrelievedley tense' Baltimore Sun
'Writing in a way that confers dignity on each subject ... This is one book that will stay with readers for a long time' People

Customer Reviews

Absolutely horrifying
This is a very detailed account of what it was like to be in the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11th, 2001. It is not so concerned with the politics of the hijackers or the details of the planes. rather the stories of the survivors and those who did not.

The confusion of the day is well conveyed, with some still sitting at their desks trying to work as people above them died. The lessons learnt from the 1993 bombing - and how they influenced the behaviour of people who recalled all too well that the people who had stayed put had been put to least inconvenience then - are also well told.

About a hundred pages in, you are just overwhelmed all over again. You can recall what it was like that day, to watch the towers abalze on TV. Some of it is almost too much, like a camera has been put inside a gas chamber at Auschwitz. The descriptions of what helicopter pilots saw particularly at the top of the north tower as people threw themselves to their deaths are truly horrendous. Relays had to be worked out at the bottom of the tower for those being evacuated so they could not be killed by the falling bodies; cops had to scream at people not to look at the plaza because it meant they would stop and stare, open-mouthed, and slow the evacuation.

The mistakes of the day are highlighted. The miserable lack of inter-service co-operation between the fire service and the police and the unnecessary equipment dragged up by doomed firefighters who became too exhausted to get out when many knew the south tower had collapsed.

The astonishing heroism of ordinary workers that day shows through. Many died so that others might live.

This is a painful, but utterly compelling book. Everyone should read it.

Empowering
A terryfying account of what actually happened in the Towers on that dreaded day.

Tales taken from survivors, families, phone calls, this book must have taken true dedication and countless hours of reasearch.

The widely known devestating conclusion to the book does not however keep you from urging on those whose stories are told within to make it out safe and sound.

The unfortunate truth however is that many thousands did not. For them, this book is worth a read so that their story is neither lost or forgotton.

Excellent! At times you think you are actually there!
A truly remarkably excellent book, so well written and at times you battle to come to grips that every bit of it really happened, every person in the book is a real person, every act of heroism is fact, one of those books that you wished never ends, by the end of it you want to know more and more so you will not be surprised when you find yourself doing your own research afterwards on the net. Its not very often that I find a book that grips me from the word go, one of those that you cannot put down, you've gotta keep going, as if each page of the book becomes a floor of the World Trade Center and a race against time, do not be surprised if you find your self still reading this book at 3am because you just couldn't put it down and you just wanted to know what happened next, apart from the absolute tragic end which we know all too well...