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alistory's review
2.0
For me, the format was too choppy to be an audiobook. Also one of the male narrators was so monotone! He was reading the words of someone traumatized - with zero emotion. It just didn’t work for me.
breedyer412's review against another edition
5.0
Not sure that a rating is necessary for a book like this. But it was very well done. Very moving way to tell the story of 9/11. Highly recommend the read.
kayla_clark_'s review
4.0
This book was really difficult for me to finish & I almost abandoned it a few times. It is SO heavy & there wasn't a time I picked it up that I didn't cry. However, it was the first time that I consumed 9/11 content that felt representative of the actual lived experiences of the people of NYC and DC. It had a really big emotional impact on me & reinforced a lot of anxieties I have about my own husband working in an NYC landmark building. It also gave me a lot of gratitude for everyday heroes and the gritty but kind people of New York.
It is so dense and so detailed, but I was grateful for the chance to feel some semblance of connection to the horror and panic of the day. It was important to me to try and understand and internalize, as difficult as that was. I would recommend that anyone reading this book try to have a little bit of healthy emotional distance as they read - because this book genuinely wrecked me a few times and put me into a state of distress.
I'm SO glad I read this book, but also glad that it's over!
It is so dense and so detailed, but I was grateful for the chance to feel some semblance of connection to the horror and panic of the day. It was important to me to try and understand and internalize, as difficult as that was. I would recommend that anyone reading this book try to have a little bit of healthy emotional distance as they read - because this book genuinely wrecked me a few times and put me into a state of distress.
I'm SO glad I read this book, but also glad that it's over!
katiebutton1978's review
5.0
This is a tough review to write.
The audiobook was mesmerizing.
Once I started to listen I finished all 16 hours in only 2 days.
I was as engaged in this as the day I watched it happen on TV.
But, did I enjoy the book? I don’t know how to answer that.
The author begins with a brief opening where he explains how he collected these stories because he knew history would need them. It’s like listening to over 50 good friends tell you their 9/11 experience. I recognized many voices and names, as well as many of the acts of bravery. I also learned some new names, and many more stories of unbelievable heroism.
The audio is truly what makes this book beautiful. The real voices and the real words of the people who were intimately involved or impacted by the events in New York, Washington or Pennsylvania. The words of President Bush addressing the nation from the White House the evening of 9/11 brought me right back and gave me chills. The force of President Obama addressing America in 2011 after Bin Laden had been killed was impactful to rehear as well.
My children were born after 2001, so they will learn about 9/11 the same way I learned about Pearl Harbor- important American history without the emotional connection of having lived through it. I’m grateful for this oral history of 9/11, and I plan to have them listen someday. They won’t feel the way we do, but it’s something.
Be prepared to be solemn and quiet as you listen and process what you are hearing. Be prepared for tears. Be prepared to be proud. Be prepared to be grateful.
I do recommend you listen to this. I recommend everyone listen to this. We must never forget.
The audiobook was mesmerizing.
Once I started to listen I finished all 16 hours in only 2 days.
I was as engaged in this as the day I watched it happen on TV.
But, did I enjoy the book? I don’t know how to answer that.
The author begins with a brief opening where he explains how he collected these stories because he knew history would need them. It’s like listening to over 50 good friends tell you their 9/11 experience. I recognized many voices and names, as well as many of the acts of bravery. I also learned some new names, and many more stories of unbelievable heroism.
The audio is truly what makes this book beautiful. The real voices and the real words of the people who were intimately involved or impacted by the events in New York, Washington or Pennsylvania. The words of President Bush addressing the nation from the White House the evening of 9/11 brought me right back and gave me chills. The force of President Obama addressing America in 2011 after Bin Laden had been killed was impactful to rehear as well.
My children were born after 2001, so they will learn about 9/11 the same way I learned about Pearl Harbor- important American history without the emotional connection of having lived through it. I’m grateful for this oral history of 9/11, and I plan to have them listen someday. They won’t feel the way we do, but it’s something.
Be prepared to be solemn and quiet as you listen and process what you are hearing. Be prepared for tears. Be prepared to be proud. Be prepared to be grateful.
I do recommend you listen to this. I recommend everyone listen to this. We must never forget.
gaypenguinwhogotslappedinhead's review against another edition
5.0
As someone who was alive on the day, but was too young to remember any of it, this book was, I think, the first piece of any 9/11 related documentary that really put the event in context for me as more than just history, but memory, the trauma of it. All these individual voices of heroism and loss, the slow build of every little person's story into this huge kaleidoscope that changed the world forever in the span of a few hours, it really hit me hard. Such incredible work here, what an amazing read. I hope others of my age, and younger, will read this too, events like these shouldn't just fade into hollow history books and snippets, they need to keep breathing through story and memory.
rnjana's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
jtotheessica's review
5.0
This was hard. Even now, I can’t watch any footage from 9/11, so this was a pull-the-bandaid-off-quickly moment for your girl. I chose to listen to the audio book and I recommend consuming it this way.
eleanorfranzen's review
I listened to this as an audiobook, and it is, as the title would suggest, sombre. But it’s also incredibly well done; a full cast reads the interviews, which are interleaved with each other and arranged in roughly chronological order, so we get a section called Tuesday Begins followed by Checking In, The First Plane, First Reactions in DC, American Airlines Flight 77, The Military Responds, and so on. It feels like nothing so much as being physically inside a multi-part documentary. The amount of work that went into the writing of the book—fifteen years—let alone the recording, is phenomenal. Did it make me tear up several times? Absolutely, yes. Did it leave me with a profound sense of hope? Also, absolutely, yes. Good to read about acute disasters during a chronic one, in a way.
brewedupbooks's review
5.0
On a day like today, the sky so blue and beautiful, not a cloud in the sky the world changed forever. The Only Plane in the Sky: an Oral History of 9/11 does exactly as it promises, it is the story of 9/11 from the survivors’, victims’, heroes’, witnesses’ & the political leaders’ points of view on that day & the days following.
Reading this book was like examining a wound & its scar tissue from many different views. There’s no common narrative or waxing poetic about what the day means, it just IS. As someone who has consumed almost every TV broadcast, interview, analysis videos, POV videos of that day, & read countless stories, I still walked away with new information I didn’t know. The biggest revelations were in the accounts from political officials, the Pentagon, the White House, the other areas around DC, & in the sky with President Bush as he went from Air Force base to Air Force base. Whether you are new to reading & learning more about 9/11 or someone who has studied it extensively, this account should be part of your reading within the next year.
My only criticism of the book is that each account is disseminated over the whole book and because there are so many different people it is incredibly easy to be confused about who you are reading about and what they said in the previous chapter. To me that filtered out a lot of the emotional impact of some of the accounts. I think I would have preferred to read this as a chapter for each account. However, Graff does an excellent job of compiling the stories and trying to form a cohesive, chronological timeline with them.
Reading this book was like examining a wound & its scar tissue from many different views. There’s no common narrative or waxing poetic about what the day means, it just IS. As someone who has consumed almost every TV broadcast, interview, analysis videos, POV videos of that day, & read countless stories, I still walked away with new information I didn’t know. The biggest revelations were in the accounts from political officials, the Pentagon, the White House, the other areas around DC, & in the sky with President Bush as he went from Air Force base to Air Force base. Whether you are new to reading & learning more about 9/11 or someone who has studied it extensively, this account should be part of your reading within the next year.
My only criticism of the book is that each account is disseminated over the whole book and because there are so many different people it is incredibly easy to be confused about who you are reading about and what they said in the previous chapter. To me that filtered out a lot of the emotional impact of some of the accounts. I think I would have preferred to read this as a chapter for each account. However, Graff does an excellent job of compiling the stories and trying to form a cohesive, chronological timeline with them.