WeHa Book Club

*Spoiler Free Review*

I’ve always tried to mix a decent amount of non-fiction books into my reading plan for the year. Don’t get me wrong, my annual list is still dominated by fiction, but I think it’s important to dedicate at least some of my time to learning about things that happened outside the brain of a novelist.

With that in mind, I also acknowledge that non-fiction can be a little dry at times. If it feels too much like a high school history book, reading can feel like a bit of a slog, and nobody wants to waste their time on that. I try to be even more diligent with my non-fiction book selections than I am with fiction because in my experience, there are very few truly awful works of fiction. But terrible non-fiction can break your spirit and kill your momentum as a reader.

Recommendations are especially helpful in this area. Understand that if someone is a die-hard UConn basketball fan, they may get more out of a Dan Hurley biography than someone who hates sports, but as long as you maintain a general understanding of the recommenders’ bias, you should be okay.

I’d recommend finding a topic you’re interested in or that you would like to learn more about and then doing a little research (word of mouth or otherwise) about who wrote the best book about that particular topic. I recently picked up a recommendation for a book about Vietnam from a question on Jeopardy! that I’m very much looking forward to reading soon, as an example.

But today, we’re discussing the incredibly comprehensive and deeply moving oral history of 9/11, entitled The Only Plane in the Sky. I’m trying to be careful with my adjectives here with the subject being so heavy, but I feel it’s perfectly reasonable to call this project ‘great’.

Taking you chronologically through the events leading up to 9/11, the horrible tragedy that took place on that day, and the ensuing fallout from the aftermath of an event that changed the face of this country forever, I was reminded of the known horror of that time while managing to gain new perspective on what it was really like for those involved.

I won’t spend any of this review getting into the politics of what led to 9/11, nor will I indulge in the politics of today – hopefully ever, on this site – but when you break it all down into it’s simplest components, you can’t help but to be engulfed in the sheer weight of that fateful day.

Phone calls to and from loved ones, small moments of impossible kindness and unbearable heartbreak, stories of regular people thrust into unimaginable circumstances and demonstrating heroism usually reserved for the movies, this is a fantastically constructed retelling of the most consequential moment of my lifetime as an American. A must-read for all.

Make no mistake, this is a difficult book to get through. I’m normally a pretty speedy binge reader and even I had to force myself to stop this book several times to take a breath and level my emotions. I had tears in my eyes throughout most of the reading.

If you do intend to take this one on, I’d highly recommend the audiobook option, as it features a full cast of voice-actors, making the oral history feel that much more impactful. When you can hear specific individuals telling their stories first-hand, it becomes impossible to write it off as some outlandish nightmare. This really happened and, of course, could happen again.

I won’t sugarcoat it for you, The Only Plane in the Sky was an absolutely brutal experience but at the same time, it felt vitally important to read. If you’ve got the stomach for it, please give this a go. You won’t regret it.

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The Only Plane in the Sky (An Oral History of 9/11) by Garrett M. Graff