This reading group guide for The Only Plane in the Sky includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Garrett Graff. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book . Introduction While there has been monumental literature published about 9/11 over the past eighteen years, a critical narrative has been missing--a 360-degree account of the day told through the voices of the people who experienced it. Now, award-winning journalist and bestselling historian Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived in The Only Plane in the Sky , drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, and the friends and family members of the deceased. Topics & Questions for Discussion 1. September 11, 2001, is a day that many people remember well, and though nearly two decades have passed, it is still a sensitive topic and difficult to discuss in-depth. What made your book group choose The Only Plane in the Sky , and were there any members who had reservations about revisiting the event in book form? If so, why? 2.
How did each member of the group initially respond to reading about this particular event through oral history? What are the strengths or benefits of experiencing this story through this particular format? The difficulties? 3. Reading a work of historical nonfiction is unique because, unlike fiction, we often know how an event plays out and how the story ends before we even open the book. What was it like to read the opening chapters knowing what was about to happen next? 4. Whereas the typical 9/11 narrative is often centered only on New York City, The Only Plane in the Sky covers the events as they unfold in all three areas of impact and across the United States. What did you learn about the reactions and experiences of people in different locations? How were they similar or different? 5. As you read The Only Plane in the Sky , did you feel compelled to consume any other media about the day (articles, YouTube clips, etc.)? 6. A running theme throughout The Only Plane in the Sky --and all 9/11 stories in general--is heroism, and the active choice a person makes in the face of chaos and tragedy to step up, whether they are in the Twin Towers or on a hijacked aircraft or running back into the Pentagon to help wounded coworkers.
Discuss what makes a hero; are they born? Are they made? Are we all capable of heroic acts? 7. Were there any chapters or moments in The Only Plane in the Sky that were particularly difficult to read? Were there any moments or memories that surprised, touched, or impacted you, or enhanced your understanding of what it was like to live through the day on the ground? 8. The 9/11 attacks were unprecedented and unexpected, a fact that is underscored in The Only Plane in the Sky as we see officials across the United States--President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, Mayor Giuliani, Governor Ridge, and more--scrambling to figure out what is going on and what is going to happen next. What would you do if you were in a position of power and an event like this occurred? Did you agree or disagree with any decisions that were made? 9. As noted in the book, an interesting thing to remember about 9/11 is the lack of communication options; the Internet was barely up and running, social media did not exist, and many people did not have cell phones. As a result, many people outside of the impacted areas did not know what was happening, or if more attacks were coming. How would the response and dissemination of information be different if an event like this were to happen today? 10. The attacks resulted in a war overseas, heightened security at home, changing views of race and ethnicity, and a fundamental shift in how we view humanity.
How did 9/11 change the way you looked at the world or lived your life from day to day? 11. Most of the people quoted in The Only Plane in the Sky were adults at the time of the attacks, but it also features the perspectives of children, both on the day and those who came of age in the years after. How do you think the experiences of 9/11 are different or similar between the generations? 12. Are there any lessons or takeaways to be learned from the people and experiences depicted in The Only Plane in the Sky ? Enhance Your Book Club 1. Take turns within the group sharing each person''s experience and memory of 9/11. If everyone is comfortable, collect and record those memories to create your own oral history of the day. 2. A range of books have been published about 9/11 in the years since the attacks, including the non-fiction accounts The Looming Tower , In the Shadow of No Towers , and 102 Minutes .
There''ve also been novels such as The Good Life , Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close , and Falling Man . Choose one of those titles to read as a group, and compare/contrast it with your experience of reading The Only Plane in the Sky . 3. September 11 is now a federally-recognized holiday, called "September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance," with the mission of inspiring civilians to dedicate time to others in the "spirit of service, unity, and peace, in tribute to the victims of 9/11 and terrorism worldwide." Choose a charity or organization in your local area that fulfills this mission, and volunteer there as a group, either on 9/11, or in honor of it on another day. A Conversation with Garrett Graff Before we get into specifics about The Only Plane in the Sky , it seems the most appropriate place to start is with the question that works its way into every conversation about September 11, 2001: Where were you? What do you remember? My own 9/11 story is not particularly interesting--I was in college, at breakfast when I first heard of the attacks. But the memories of that day are burned into my mind vividly. Today, I could walk into that dining hall and walk directly to the seat where I was sitting that crisp September morning.
I could recount too where everyone I was sitting with was seated, where my friend who told me that two planes had struck the World Trade Center was standing when she said it, precisely how her hand was resting on the dining table as she told us the news. Similarly, I can tell you precisely where I was standing when I realized the first tower had fallen--it fell while I was racing from my dorm to the campus newspaper--and where I was when I first saw a photo of Osama bin Laden on CNN and how confused I was: I''d never heard this name before. How was everyone on TV so confident this was who had attacked us? As I''ve now learned, my experience, memories, and waves of emotion that day are hardly unique--we all felt the surprise, which morphed into fear and then into strength. I do remember one important personal reaction to 9/11: I was the crime reporter for the campus paper at the time, and I spent the day covering how the university was reacting to the attack. I remember being grateful for being a journalist that day, because it gave me something to do in the midst of the horror--a place to channel my energy and to focus my work rather than just sitting there as a passive observer. So many people that day had such a sense of helplessness watching that day; I was relieved I had something to do. The Only Plane in the Sky is an expansion of an article you wrote for POLITICO in 2016, which was an oral history of 9/11 from the perspective of those aboard Air Force One. How did you come to write that article in the first place, and what made you decide it should be part of a larger narrative? Did experience writing your previous two books, The Threat Matrix and Raven Rock , contribute in any way to this project? Through one lens, almost all of my writing over 15 years has been trying to make sense of 9/11 and how it changed our country.
I primarily cover federal law enforcement, national security, and intelligence--and nearly every story there is shaped by 9/11. Much of what I''ve written about in my magazine work, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence, for instance, were direct creations of the government''s response to 9/11. And two of my books, The Threat Matrix (about the FBI''s counterterrorism efforts) and Raven Rock (about the government''s Doomsday plans), turn in large part on the events of 9/11. In writing my last book, Raven Rock , about the Cold War and the U.S. government''s secret plans for doomsday, I became fascinated with the story of President Bush on 9/11--how at the moment of the nation''s greatest need for leadership, he spent much of the day hidden aboard Air Force One, stuck in a metal tube seven miles above the earth with little communication and little understanding of what was transpiring to his nation below. And so when I found myself weeks before the 15th anniversary sitting next to the wife of the colonel who piloted Air Force One that day, I set out to do an oral history centered on that flight and that day. I wasn''t interested in the facts of the day, which have been well-documented and are familiar to a.