Rating: 
Summary: Exploitive effort like all the other "9/11" books
Review: "A portion of the proceeds will be donated to an accredited charitable organization, The New York Times 9/11 Neediest Fund" reads the press release from their publisher powerhouse books. Right...How much? One would like to know. Who's profiting?!? All those "quickie" books just check this website if you don't believe me: Reuters, Time-Life, now Magnum all try to exploit the profound tragedy which affected deeply this nation. All of them, it seems, look and feel the same to me. Here a sloppy idea is poorly executed. Good pics but bungled by a mishmash editorial efforts, below average presentation and printing. I can see that the publishers have certainly $dollar sign in their minds (i.e. inquiries for international licensing encouraged?!?) Opportunity for the quick buck for Magnum and Powerhouse. This is sad -- what is Monsieur Cartier-Bresson thinking now? Ashamed at his collegues?
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting yet average book.
Review: (Mostly) quite good photos, (some) of them really excellent like Mr. Hoepker's stuff, wow -- but no original point of view here. Professional but structurally contrived book without a personal touch I would expect from those talented folks at Magnum. Hey, what about photo intros by Mr. Meiselas and Mr. Towell? Their stories do not reconcile -- where's the truth? In a nutshell: this is a solid, honest but quite average photo book. A robust C+.
Rating: 
Summary: Moving photos
Review: A beautiful book about a horrible, sad and devasting day in the life of New York City.
I love it: not only you do you see many different views and locations of the destruction and despair downtown, but also feel the intensity in the air. These are more then documentary photos: these are icons. My favorites are Larry Towell, Thomas Hoepker and Gilles Peress.
Buy this book!!
Rating: 
Summary: Professionalism uncompromised
Review: A friend was contemplating to buy me this book for Christmas, only decidedly nudged off the idea by reason of its dismal contents. And he was not wrong to say that.
Pictures range from the attack itself, in the first few introductory pages, to America's mourning, all emotionally riveting and eerily haunting of 'the' day of infamy.
As if the sharply snapped photos are not enough to evoke hurting feelings, captions and accounts accompany almost every picture (in a funny electronic-calculator-font) to guide the reader through each hour that passed from the morning of Sept 11.
Besides that, I appreciate the way the photographers take one into the surrounding buildings (e.g. WFC2) and the way perspective is given by the numerous heartwrenching portraits of the WTC towers (on fire) from the streets, from another building, from the Brooklyn Bridge and almost any other possible aspects.
Understandably, pictures of the attacks itself are in paucity. (well, who could anticipate?). A comprehensive tribute, only too grim and dismal. Writer could have included essays by the public that could make the book seem a little more than a hopeless history account... It's not supposed to be so.
Rating:
Summary: History as It Happened
Review: A photographer, lounging in bed and unaware of the disaster unfolding a few blocks away, is awakened by a colleague with the news of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center. In New York City for a meeting, and unfamiliar with the territory, he asks his colleague where the WTC is. "Follow the smoke, country boy," is her reply. This anecdote resonates on several levels. It tells us about how everyone, it seems, was affected on that day, and it tells us how one photojournalist, one of several Magnum photo agency photographers, was personally touched by the events. He and others, who had come from postings around the world to New York City for a meeting the day before, captured the images of the story of their professional lives. And, of course, it's about the dreadful smoke, the utter devastation as the Twin Towers first burned then collapsed in full view of millions. The Magnum book is an excellent record of the disaster. Even those who have seen hundreds of photos and TV accounts will find pictures that are worthy of extra study. As a record, it's excellent, though I have yet to find a book that has captured the entire story. It's probably too soon. But the starkness of many of the pictures, the shades of gray and blue as the concrete dust and soot spewed for blocks (and later miles) and then settled on everything an everyone, should be seen in still photo. It's very different from the moving images on TV and demand careful attention.
The photos tell us that people sometimes do strange things, though they may be explicable. There's probably a reason that a woman sat on a rooftop in Brooklyn, with her baby, and watched the disaster, even though the choking smoke must have drifted over her pretty quickly. Perhaps she couldn't look away. The red, white and blue of an American flag adds just a touch of color to the otherwise smoky blue-gray centerpiece picture by Thomas Hoepker. It's a chilling picture, one capable of telling anyone who wasn't there what it really looked like, almost what it felt like. This book is absolutely a keeper for the future. Many are not the news pictures we've become familiar with because of the endless reruns on TV but that's what gives them extra value. As time passes, and memories fade, this book will remind us what it was like that awful day.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing quality
Review: Although there is much to be admired in this book, I found the quality very disappointing. The binding etc. was not what I had hoped for, but the biggest disappointment was the manner in which the most interesting, eye-catching parts of the photographs were placed in the crease, where the book is bound. I actually missed some really interesting details the first time through because they disappeared down into the crease. More thought/time should have gone into the placement of the pictures. This is obviously a let's-get-it-out quick book and it shows.
Rating:
Summary: The only thing I wanted was a book of photos...
Review: And that's what I got when I ordered New York September 11. The book has this authenticity about it that yearns for me to keep it the rest of my life, and I probably will. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in some instances, just let that be. There are a few accounts in here, but not many throughout the 140 pages. The first page after the publisher information is a short poem with a picture of the second jet about 200-300 feet away from the second tower to be hit. Pages 4 and 5 is a short article, with stills from Evan Fairbanks' footage of the second tower being hit. Then, pictures, pictures, pictures. They all have captions, and every once in a while you will run into one that actually has a small story to go with it. I applaud Magnum for this book of images. I didn't want a book of pictures because I am sick, but I wanted one to show, possibly my children or my neighbors' children, just how lucky they were, and that it wasn't something to forget about. I never lived through Pearl Harbor, I'm only 21, and I never saw Pearl Harbor as too much of a big deal until September 11, and came to realize how so many military men's families suffered that fateful day. I hope that with this book, it will remind us of that day, and someday, remind our children that we're not as invincible as we once thought we were.
Rating:
Summary: The only thing I wanted was a book of photos...
Review: And that's what I got when I ordered New York September 11. The book has this authenticity about it that yearns for me to keep it the rest of my life, and I probably will. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in some instances, just let that be. There are a few accounts in here, but not many throughout the 140 pages. The first page after the publisher information is a short poem with a picture of the second jet about 200-300 feet away from the second tower to be hit. Pages 4 and 5 is a short article, with stills from Evan Fairbanks' footage of the second tower being hit. Then, pictures, pictures, pictures. They all have captions, and every once in a while you will run into one that actually has a small story to go with it. I applaud Magnum for this book of images. I didn't want a book of pictures because I am sick, but I wanted one to show, possibly my children or my neighbors' children, just how lucky they were, and that it wasn't something to forget about. I never lived through Pearl Harbor, I'm only 21, and I never saw Pearl Harbor as too much of a big deal until September 11, and came to realize how so many military men's families suffered that fateful day. I hope that with this book, it will remind us of that day, and someday, remind our children that we're not as invincible as we once thought we were.
Rating:
Summary: excellent and moving pictures
Review: As a New Yorker who has lived through the horrors of September 11 I thought I would never want to see another picture of the event. But when a friend brought me the book by the Magnum photographers I was fascinated and deeply touched by the images. The book brought back memories, bad and good from those dark days. The photographs are stunning, some are even beautiful, especially the shots of the Trade Towers when they were still standing. I appreciate the special sensibility behind the photographs - these are not sensationalistic snapshots but honest and strong pictures. This book is a valuable document of an historic event of the greatest magnitude, a book one has to own and cherish. I will recommend it to all my friends.
Rating:
Summary: GARBAGE!!!
Review: As a resident of Hillside NJ, Manhattan was just minutes away. Whether I was coming home from work or school, i would always stare at the twin towers from a distance. This book does not help me with my memories at all. The pictures are very poor quality. The book and the pages feels and even looks cheap. The pictures are dark and out of focused. I've seen some of the clips on tv, and they were nice and bright, i look at the same picture in this book and it looks like it was in the evening time. The way the editors describes the pictures makes it seem like gold. To me it was copper. I would give it lower than one star, but it wouldn't let me.
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