Out of the Blue: A Narrative of September 11, 2001
Veteran Times reporter and book critic Bernstein has drawn on  the newspaper's staff reporting of the terrible events of  September 11 to create an account that stands out for its  poignancy and humanity. Focusing on the personal the victims,  the perpetrators and heroes whose lives became tangled in  catastrophe the book goes behind the scenes to explore the ways  in which so many lives were irrevocably changed. The personal  vignettes are emotional without being maudlin, informative  without being polemical. We get, for instance, the stunning  moment, described with admirable understatement, when Joe  Disorbo at the World Trade Center, who "had been too busy  surviving to contemplate the scope of the disaster... realized  that he was staring into a dusty vacant sky. 'Where's the  building?' he asked, not quite believing the evidence of his  eyes." But the book doesn't stop at the personal. It uses these  stories as a jumping-off point for a comprehensive look at the  terror attacks the reactions of New Yorkers, the nation and the  world; the criticism of U.S. government agencies; the lingering  effects of the tragedy. While some of this information has been  published elsewhere, it has not been gathered so  comprehensively nor has it been written so well. This powerful  account deserves to be a bestseller. (Sept. 11)Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.