Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The dramatic and moving account of the struggle for life inside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, when every minute counted

At 8:46 am on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people were inside the twin towers-reading e-mails, making trades, eating croissants at Windows on the World. Over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages, one witnessed only by the people who lived it-until now.

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 have taken the opposite-and far more revealing-approach. Reported from the perspectives of those inside the towers, 102 Minutes captures the little-known stories of ordinary people who took extraordinary steps to save themselves and others. Beyond this stirring panorama stands investigative reporting of the first rank. An astounding number of people actually survived the plane impacts but were unable to escape, and the authors raise hard questions about building safety and tragic flaws in New York's emergency preparedness.

Dwyer and Flynn rely on hundreds of interviews with rescuers, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts. They cross a bridge of voices to go inside the infernos, seeing cataclysm and heroism, one person at a time, to tell the affecting, authoritative saga of the men and women-the nearly 12,000 who escaped and the 2,749 who perished-as they made 102 minutes count as never before.   102 Minutes is a 2005 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

From 102 Minutes : When he returned to 78, Greg Trapp saw a group of three Port Authority employees at work on the doors to the elevator where Tony Savas, a seventy-two-year-old structural inspector, was trapped. Trapp peered into the small gap and saw him, a man with thinning white hair, seemingly serene. One of the workers grabbed a metal easel, wedging the legs into the opening, trying to spread the doors from the bottom, where they seemed to have the greatest leverage. But their efforts had the opposite effect at the top of the doors, which seemed to pinch tighter. At that moment, John Griffin, who had recently started as the trade center's director of operations, came over to the elevator bank. At six feet, eight inches tall, Griffin had no problem reaching the top of the door to apply pressure as the others pushed from the bottom. The doors popped apart. Out came Savas, who seemed surprised to find Griffin, his new boss, involved in the rescue. Savas seemed exhilarated, possessed of a sudden burst of energy, rubbing his hands together, or so it seemed to Trapp. "Okay," Savas said. "What do you need me to do?" One of the Port Authority workers shook his head. "We just got you out-you need to leave the building." No, Savas insisted. He wanted to help. "I've got a second wind." Excerpted from 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer, Kevin Flynn All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

It is September 11, 2001, and Dwyer and Flynn, veteran New York City newspaper reporters, take us into the 102 minutes of hell experienced by those in the World Trade Center between the time the first jet crashed into the north tower and the last standing tower toppled. While other accounts have focused on the members of NYFD and NYPD who responded to the catastrophe, this book tells the stories of scores of civilians. One might think that little good could be made of a situation in which at least 2700 persons died-hundreds needlessly owing to misguided instructions to stay at their posts, a building designed more to minimize unrentable space (i.e., stairways and elevators) than to save lives, failure to learn from the previous terrorist bombing in 1993, and lack of communication between police and fire departments. We do, however, find light amid the grimness-the heroism of civilians who chose to remain and rescue others, the loyalty of those who stayed with friends who could not escape, the strength of the human spirit itself. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/04.]-Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

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 fiancee: "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. Agent, Philippa Brophy. (Jan. 12) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Adult/High School-In a compelling and clear writing style, Dwyer and Flynn use the words of victims and survivors to show what it was like to live through moments of despair and heroism inside the towers on 9/11. Using interviews, e-mails, telephone records, emergency radio tapes, and transcripts, the authors allow readers to experience the terror from the moment the first plane struck until the second tower fell. Diagrams of the buildings give a clearer sense of the mechanics of the tragedy. The passage of time has done nothing to diminish the heroism of citizens and rescue personnel alike whose lives where irrevocably changed by the events of that day. Introducing readers to some of the people who were there reminds us of the survival instinct and the willingness of individuals to help others while they themselves are in the direst of circumstances.-Peggy Bercher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

New York Times0 reporters Dwyer and Flynn have compiled an unbearably painful but indispensable account of what transpired inside the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001--from the crash of American Airlines flight 11 into the upper floors of the north tower to the hallucinatory collapse of both towers in the 102 minutes that followed. The authors have combed through hundreds of interviews with witnesses and survivors, as well as transcriptions of thousands of radio transmissions, e-mails, and phone calls, to produce a taut, minute-by-minute account of the events. They also provide historical background at critical points in their narrative. In the compacted time of 102 minutes can be seen the human condition at its most despairing and its most noble: from poor souls seeking any relief from the inferno by leaping out of windows high in the north tower to four Port Authority employees who stayed behind to free more than 70 persons who were trapped. As inspired as the authors might have been by so many individual instances of courage and sacrifice, they take authorities to task: local fire and police brass, for example, for unresolved turf wars and miscommunications, and the Bush administration for underestimating al-Qaeda and hampering the 9/11 Commission's efforts at understanding exactly what happened. --Alan Moores Copyright 2004 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Two New York Times reporters take us inside the World Trade Center on 9/11 to give us a more capacious view of heroism. Dwyer (Subway Lives, 1991, etc.), who won a Pulitzer as part of the group that covered the 1993 WTC bombing, teamed with special-projects editor Flynn to interview scores of survivors and their families; the pair also studied e- and voice-mails from those inside. From these sources they've pieced together a powerful account of the disaster that hesitates neither to confer laurels nor point fingers. Their technique is not novel: we move around the buildings, getting to know some folks employed there and learning names and histories of rescue workers. We know the buildings will fall; those inside do not. (Most people fleeing the north tower didn't discover until they got outside that the south had fallen.) The authors lard their tale with surprising and alarming detail. The Marriott swimming pool caught fire. A man carried a disabled woman 54 floors down to the street. A fireman was killed by a falling human being. Molten aluminum from a melting airliner poured from an 80th-floor window. A dead cop's gun went off in the searing heat. Their account of the rescue efforts is equally disturbing. The various agencies were unable to communicate with one another; firemen carrying 57 pounds of equipment struggled slowly up stairs choked by smoke, heat, and debris; 911 dispatchers gave mixed messages to those inside; about a hundred firemen died in the north tower because they had stopped to rest on floor 19 and didn't hear the evacuation order. The authors conclude that most of the rescuing was done by civilians helping one another, not by policemen and firemen. Flynn and Dwyer do not seek to diminish what the safety officers did; instead, they celebrate the extraordinary capacities of ordinary folk. Swift, photographic prose defines the dimensions of hell--and of humanity. (8-page photo insert) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.