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.

New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn rely on hundreds of interviews; thousands of pages of oral histories; and 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 12, 000 who escaped and the 2, 749 who perished - who made 102 minutes count as never before.

"This is a heart-stopping, heartbreaking book. It is also an infuriating one. Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn give us vivid examples of uncommon valor in the face of approaching doom. Nobody can read these pages without feeling a chilly surge of fear. But they also give us - in lucid, understated prose - explanations for the immensity of the calamity. In short, this is an essential document about New York's worst human tragedy. And it's a terrific book." --- Pete Hamill