RA course - nonfiction lesson

The book I read for the course is: I highly recommend it!
I read Touching History: the Untold Story of the Drama that Unfolded in the Skies over America on 9/11. I was hesitant at first to read a book about 9/11 - revisiting that tragedy. But Spencer's focus is not on the tragedy, the human loss, the terrorists -- rather, she writes about what it was like that day in the skies for the pilots flying planes that day, the air traffic controllers, and the military fighters who eventually went up in the skies to possibly shoot down civilian/commercial planes. As a pilot herself she has the technical knowlege about flying and piloting planes. She gained access to pilots who were in the skies that day, to air traffic controllers and others on the ground, and to government officials (after they realized she was not a "crackpot"). Besides gaining access, Spencer's other challenge was that she was not a writer. But, boy, what a writer she is! The story is engrossing and covers a lot of information that understandably wasn't focused on by the media in the days or months after the tragedy. This is a great book to recommed to people interested in 9/11, interested in American history, interested in flying stories, amateur pilots or those who like excitement, page-turning reads - talk about a fast pace -- so mystery readers would also enjoy this book. (Published in 2008)

I can't say enough about this book - try it and recommend it to others. It is fast-paced yet offers lots of explanatin - in a non-technical way. I'd never thought about what it was like for the pilots in the air that day - what confusion there was - these are pilots in flights all over the country - not just a mention of the doomed flights. Because of uncertainty and security reasons, the pilots weren't told exactly what was happening. They were told to land at other airports - some had to struggle to make it to other airports due to low fuel. The air controllers acted very professionally. They had to struggle with the hijacked flights -- it was quite some time since hijacks over U.S. territory and these hijacks were different - they weren't making demands or raising political issues AND they knew, although with some mistakes, about flying planes and cutting off communications!