Report from Ground Zero: The Story of the Rescue Efforts at the World Trade Center
Author: Dennis Smith
What would make someone rush into a towering inferno and dash up stairs toward danger against a flow of human beings running in the opposite direction? Only someone who's been there can tell us.
In this first book-length account of the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center, retired New York City firefighter Dennis Smith gives a remarkable eyewitness account of perhaps the most heroic and desperate collaborative disaster effort in recent history. Smith arrived on the scene shortly after the attacks on September 11 and stayed for weeks. He stretched hoses, picked up bodies, and talked with police, firefighters, and emergency workers who had rushed downtown to confront a spectacle no rescue worker had ever faced before.
In Report from Ground Zero, Smith gives us the stories of some of the 343 firefighters who were reported missing or dead, including; Captain Pat Brown from Ladder Company 3, who was a personal friend; a father and son; the department's beloved chaplain; commanders; rookies; and entire companies that were lost. Smith pays tribute to the dozens of police and emergency workers who dies, as well as those who undertook an urgent search and rescue mission and, finally, the grim and daunting task of massive clean up.
Smith's rare blend of superb writing skills and up-close firefighting experience drop us into the psyche of a firefighter, which sheds light on what would make someone rush into a flaming building: it's called heroism.
Entertainment Weekly
No matter how well told, insightful, or compelling the stories are—and almost to a one, they fit that description—the book demands breaks.
New York Times
Smith has captured the horror and chaos of those first terrifying hours, and the ensuing anger and grief and determination.
Library Journal
In words as devastatingly heartbreaking as the photo on the book's cover, Smith uses his skill as a writer to capture the horrors of September 11, 2001. Smith is a retired New York City fireman and author of the bestselling Report from Engine Co. 82, so he is able to convey the mind-set of this "brotherhood." The firefighters, rescue workers, and police personnel who responded to the World Trade Center attack all went into this cataclysm to do their job-to rescue as many people as they possibly could. The author captures the raw emotion of the event as seen through the eyes of people who survived and also as a participant during the search and rescue mission. A cast of actors present the testimonies of survivors, making this work even more gripping. Excellently performed, Report from Ground Zero is highly recommended for all libraries.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
New Yorker
The first-person narratives in this account of the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center constitute a tremendously powerful chronicle of September 11th. The language of the firefighters and police officers is blunt and vivid, the details are sharply etched, and the fractured stories -- particularly of those who were inside the towers but somehow escaped -- offer a Cubist vision of the day's chaos. The book's description of the disaster's aftermath is less successful: Smith conveys the ritualistic and sacramental nature of the search for the victims' remains, but he lapses too frequently into sentimentality and abstract meditations on patriotism and courage. The author, who also wrote the gripping "Report from Engine Co. 82," does best when he lets the images speak for themselves: the airplane luggage scattered across the plaza; the waves of firemen disappearing into the stairwells; the indelible sound -- "like an M-80 firecracker," one man says -- of bodies hitting the ground; and the moment when suddenly there was "nothing but dust."
Go to: Fondue or Girls Guide to Wine
The Third Reich in Power
Author: Richard J Evans
The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war
This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of the Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. As those who were deemed unworthy to be counted among the German people were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms, Hitler's drive to prepare Germany for the war that he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939. The Third Reich in Power is the fullest and most authoritative account yet written of how, in six years, Germany was brought to the edge of that terrible abyss.
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