American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road

Nick Bilton

The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom—and almost got away with it. In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything—drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons—free of the government’s watchful eye. It wasn’t long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone—not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers—could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site’s elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts. The Silk Road quickly ballooned into $1.2 billion enterprise, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. He enlisted a loyal crew of allies in high and low places, all as addicted to the danger and thrill of running an illegal marketplace as their customers were to the heroin they sold. Through his network he got wind of the target on his back and took drastic steps to protect himself—including ordering a hit on a former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the Feds raced against the clock to catch a man they weren’t sure even existed, searching for a needle in the haystack of the global Internet. Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, Vanity Fair correspondent and New York Times bestselling author Nick Bilton offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks and unbelievable close calls. It’s a story of the boy next door’s ambition gone criminal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning, anonymous, decentralized Web advocates and the old world of government control, order, and the rule of law. Filled with unforgettable characters and capped by an astonishing climax, American Kingpin might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it’s all too real.

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Among the Heroes

Jere Longman

“A powerful reconstruction of the flight’s final moments. . . . Made me think of John Hersey’s Hiroshima .” —  New York Times Book Review The definitive story of the courageous men and women aboard Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and of the day that forever changed the way Americans view the world and themselves. Of the four horrific hijackings on September 11, Flight 93 resonates as one of epic resistance. At a time when the United States appeared defenseless against an unfamiliar foe, the gallant passengers and crew of Flight 93 provided for many Americans a measure of victory in the midst of unthinkable defeat. Together, they seemingly accomplished what all the security guards and soldiers, military pilots and government officials, could not—they thwarted the terrorists, sacrificing their own lives so that others might live. The culmination of hundreds of interviews with family members and months of investigation, this powerful and deeply moving book is a lasting testament to American heroes.

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All Available Boats The Evacuation of Manhattan Island on September 11, 2001

Mike Magee (M.D.)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, as the World Trade Center tragedy unfolded, thousands of men and women on or near the waters of New York harbor converged to help in any way possible. Answering the U.S. Coast Guard's radio call for "all available boats," hundreds of vessels of all types raced across the Hudson and East Rivers and the Upper Bay of New York harbor. Over the course of the day, these boats would evacuate over 300,000 people from Manhattan, pump water from the harbor to feed hoses, bring in needed supplies, rescue people in the water, and carry firefighters, police, and medical and emergency service workers to Ground Zero. This is their story.

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Never Forget: An Oral History of September 11

Mitchell Fink

"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.

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Channel of Peace: Stranded in Gander on 9/11

Kevin Tuerff

A fully revised and updated paperback edition featuring over twenty colour photographs. When Kevin Tuerff and his partner boarded their flight from France to New York City on September 11, 2001, they had no idea that a few hours later the world — and their lives — would change forever. After U.S. airspace closed following the terrorist attacks, Kevin, who had been experiencing doubts about organized religion, found himself in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, with thousands of other refugees or “come from aways.” Channel of Peace is a beautiful account of how the people of Gander rallied with boundless acts of generosity and compassion for the “plane people,” renewing Kevin’s spirituality and inspiring him to organize an annual and growing “giving back” day. His story, along with others, has reached thousands of people when it was incorporated into the Broadway musical Come From Away. In Channel of Peace: Stranded in Gander on 9/11, you will find an unforgettable, uplifting tale of goodwill, the strength of the human spirit, and hope.

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The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

Garrett M. Graff

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. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.

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A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends

Dennis Smith

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a portrait of tragedy, survival, and healing from the author of The New York Times bestseller Report from Ground Zero . This year marks the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an occasion that is sure to be observed around the world. But among the memorials, political speeches, and news editorials, the most pressing consideration- and often the most overlooked-is the lives and well-being of the 9/11 first responders, their families, and the victims' families over the past decade. Dennis Smith, a former firefighter and the author of the bestselling Report from Ground Zero , addresses this important topic in a series of interviews with the heroes and families of those most affected by the tragedy either through feats of bravery in the rescue efforts or heroic bearing up in the face of unimaginable loss. Smith provides an intimate look at a terrible moment in history and its challenging and difficult aftermath, allowing these survivors to share their stories of loss, endurance, and resilience in their own words. A Decade of Hope is an honest and vitally important look at a decade in the lives of those for whom a national tragedy was a devastatingly personal ordeal.

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A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends

Dennis Smith

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a portrait of tragedy, survival, and healing from the author of The New York Times bestseller Report from Ground Zero . This year marks the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an occasion that is sure to be observed around the world. But among the memorials, political speeches, and news editorials, the most pressing consideration- and often the most overlooked-is the lives and well-being of the 9/11 first responders, their families, and the victims' families over the past decade. Dennis Smith, a former firefighter and the author of the bestselling Report from Ground Zero , addresses this important topic in a series of interviews with the heroes and families of those most affected by the tragedy either through feats of bravery in the rescue efforts or heroic bearing up in the face of unimaginable loss. Smith provides an intimate look at a terrible moment in history and its challenging and difficult aftermath, allowing these survivors to share their stories of loss, endurance, and resilience in their own words. A Decade of Hope is an honest and vitally important look at a decade in the lives of those for whom a national tragedy was a devastatingly personal ordeal.

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Ash and Honor: The Untold 368 Minutes of 9/11

Jeffrey Robinson

Publishing for the 25th anniversary of 9/11: A dramatic, never-before-told, minute by minute account of the military, national security, and aviation response to the devastating attacks against the United States On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. While the events of that day have been widely reported, Ash and Honor is a masterclass of narrative journalism, putting into a shocking new context what really happened. Investigative journalist Jeffrey Robinson weaves together the stories of more than 60 American and Canadian eye-witnesses to history, many of whom who have never spoken publicly, taking readers on a unique journey deep inside the most crucial and devastating 368 minutes of our time. Ash and Honor draws from the voices of people in the air and on―or below―the ground, all making crucial, split-second decisions. From the pilot in the cockpit of what was possibly “the fifth plane”; to the pilots in the cockpits of the fighter jets on a suicide mission to stop the hijacked planes from reaching their targets; to Air Force One, where the pilot, facing a direct threat to the plane, told himself, “Time to be Tom Cruise,” while the Secret Service agent responsible for President Bush’s safety refused his demand to return to Washington. Robinson reveals what happened in a bunker five stories below the East Wing of the White House, where an illegal order was made to shoot down a civilian passenger jet; in a tense meeting in the National Military Command Center’s top-secret Air Threat Conference; and in NORAD’s underground Cheyenne Mountain, where a direct threat to NORAD was so menacing that the commanding General declared “Battle stations” deep inside and ordered the 30-ton hardened steel blast doors shut. Meanwhile, the FAA’s national operations manager took it upon himself to order all planes in the air to land; the Canadian Minister of Transport suddenly found himself with 238 planes and 33,000 passengers diverted to Canada; the small Canadian towns of Whitehorse and Gander braced for crises and emergency landings; and a three-star general in Alaska stared down Vladimir Putin, who deliberately sent Russian bombers right up to the edge of US airspace as America’s nuclear response was put on a worldwide 15-minute alert. ASH AND HONOR is the definitive chronicle of the chaos and confusion, the turmoil and pandemonium, told by first-hand sources who guided America through the ash and honor of its darkest day.

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