May Reading Round-Up

Here's a look at the books we loved, didn't love, read, rated, or DNF'd this month!

Jay's Reads (10):

   
   
 

What I Rated Them:
The Turn of the Key - ☕☕☕☕.75
The Dead Girls Club - ☕☕☕.75
Finding Peace - ☕☕☕☕.5
The Book of Essie - ☕☕☕☕
When We Were Vikings - ☕☕☕.5
Know My Name - ☕☕☕☕☕
The Bright Side of Going Dark - ☕☕☕☕.75
An American Marriage - ☕☕☕☕.5
One of Us is Next - ☕☕☕.75
You Were There Too - ☕☕☕.5


Favorite Read:
Know My Name, by far. The strength and courage it must have taken to write gives me goosebumps.

Least Favorite Read:
You Were There Too

DNF?:
The Genius of Women

Rolling over to next month: 
The Substitute
Daisy Jones and the Six
My Dark Vanessa

Meg's Reads (9):

  
  
  

What I Rated Them: 
Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado- ☕☕☕
The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado ☕☕☕☕
Shotgun Angels: My Story of Broken Roads and Unshakeable Hope ☕☕☕
Into the Wild ☕☕☕
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption ☕☕☕
The Book of Essie ☕☕☕☕
Hell in a Handbasket ☕☕☕☕
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy ☕☕☕☕
In High Cotton ☕☕☕☕

Favorite Read: The Book of Essie

Least Favorite Read: Storm Warning & Into the Wild

DNF: None this month

Carrying Over to Next Month:
Up Shute Creek
Johnny Cash The Life

Five Star Friday - The Only Plane in the Sky

This week's Five Star read was read by Jay!

Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads: “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham

“Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” —Katie Couric

“The Only Plane in the Sky is a stunning and important work—chilling, heartbreaking—and I cannot stop thinking about it.” —Anderson Cooper

“Readers who emerge dry-eyed from the text should check their pulses: Something is wrong with their hearts.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from the voices of Americans on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma.

Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, which traced the rise of al-Qaeda, to The 9/11 Commission Report, the government’s definitive factual retrospective of the attacks. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through the voices of the people who experienced it.

Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, award-winning journalist and bestselling historian Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived—in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, Graff paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet.

Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York City, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker underneath the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard the small number of unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United Flight 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid.

More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son working in the North Tower, caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from rushing into the burning building to try to rescue their colleagues.

At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama.

Genre? Non-fiction.

Backlist? Yes. Published September 10, 2019.

New to me Author? Yes

Why I rated it 5 stars? 
If you know anything about me, you know I'm a hardcore reader. If you know me well, you know I don't generally like non-fiction books.

However, I cannot speak highly enough about this book, The Only Plane in the Sky. It was the most soul-touching, eye-opening, reflective, emotional book I think I've ever read. And it's non-fiction!

If you like non-fiction (or if you don't), if you want to have your heart ripped out of your chest and put back in, or if you just want to learn more about 9/11 (eye-opening if like me, you were young when it happened so you didn't know extra details), please pick up this book.