"The real voices of 9/11 are here, and they will echo down through history as a haunting reminder of loss and hope, courage and heroism."

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-- Tom Brokaw

On September 11, 2001, waves of shock rippled through the country as the United States came under terrorist attack. "Never Forget collects the unbelievably moving stories of survivors, rescue workers, volunteers, family members, and friends whose loved ones perished on that day — from the moments the planes first struck the Twin Towers through the painstaking recovery efforts. As these unforgettable stories reveal, many Americans transcended their own confusion and despair to help one another escape, to offer one another kindness, and to affirm life in the face of catastrophe. This concert of voices shows, as never before, the heartbreaking grief and slow, but uplifting, healing process that the people of this nation have experienced individually and as one.

Mitchell Fink, former New York Daily News gossip columnist, teamed with wife Lois Mathias to gather the first-person accounts of World Trade Center office workers, Pentagon employees, rescue workers, witnesses, and others who lived through the events of September 11. And while Fink does have a background in news reporting, his years plying the gossip trade actually serve him well in Never Forget. Part of the role of the gossipmonger, after all, is to reveal the human sides of public figures, to find the ways in which the famous are just like regular people. Fink and Mathias's interview subjects tell vivid details of what they experienced, forming fascinating, horrifying, and uplifting stories that provide a human face to the magnitude of that day's events. The book is not organized particularly clearly and, between sections, the authors unnecessarily underscore the stories with short inspirational messages rather than let their subjects' experiences do the talking. But the sheer force of the stories themselves is undeniable: the NYPD Chief of Police relates the experience of watching one of the towers collapse, a preschool teacher tells of the three days she spent searching in vain for her fiancé, an 89-year-old man describes his trip down 88 flights of stairs. After reading all of these stories, the reader may be struck with not only the enormity of what happened, but also a glimpse into the real impact it had on the people who lived through it.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 --John Moe

Fink is a print and TV journalist, and his wife, Lois Mathias, is an environmental activist and child advocate. Their book gathers first-person narratives by individuals whose lives were intimately impacted by the events of that day. From a construction inspector at the World Trade Center to a musician who lived in an apartment close by and witnessed the horrendous damage done by the first plane; from a young man and woman who escaped from their Lower Manhattan apartment and ferried to Staten Island, only to be subjected to a humiliating shower in public by hospital personnel, to the mother of a man on the hijacked flight that went down in Pennsylvania--all have their poignant, difficult stories to tell, which are neither easy to put down nor easy to keep reading.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Brad Hooper

Height (cm) 22.4 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Width (cm) 14.5