Second Plane: September 11, 2001-2007, The

Martin Amis first wrote about September 11 a week later in a piece for The Guardian beginning, It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue ofLiberty- that was the defining moment. In the years that passed since then, he has returned to the subject again and again, in reviews (ofthe film United 93 as well as books), essays and two remarkable short stories, In the Palace of the End and The Last Days of Muhammad Atta . All are collected here, together with his account of the time he spent shadowing Tony Blair for the Sunday Times. As Amis says in his introduction, If September 11 had to happen, I am not at all sorry that it happened in my lifetime. That day and what followed from it- this is a narrative of misery and pain, and also of desperate fascination. Geopolitics may not be my natural subject, but masculinity is. And have we ever seen the male idea in such outrageous garb as the robes, combat fatigues, suits and ties, jeans, tracksuits and medic s smocks of the Islamic radical?

About the Author :
Martin Amis is the author of ten novels, two collections of stories and six collections of non-fiction. He lives in London.

Review :
"[Amis is a] writer who is arguably the most gifted stylist of his generation, and who may be genetically incapable of a dull sentence . . . The Second Plane and the furor surrounding its inception represent the debate an open and confident society should be willing to sustain about such fundamental, if difficult, matters." -"Toronto Star " "The Second Plane is an essential snapshot of a moment in time, of private reactions to a world in transition set against a collective anger and despair." -"Edmonton Journal " "Novelist Martin Amis's bent for punchy sentences and reason-as-the-only-fit-yardstick geopolitical analysis both surface early in this provocative collection of non-fiction essays, reviews and short stories. . . . Tough, and controversial, stances abound in The Second Plane. . . . Amis's command of language is a joy to read." -"Winnipeg Free Press ""The great value of this book is that it does not permit us the armchair luxury of relativizing or compartmentalizing the War on Terror. By shifting the stage from the local to the global and raising the bar from the actual to the potential, Amis holds both sides to the same standards." -"The Gazette" "Amis is a highly intuitive writer. . . . The views Amis presents are worth reading for their wit, their vibrant phrasing, their ring of conviction." -"National Post" "[V]erbal thrill . . .[Amis's] writing remains capable of anything" -"The Observer " "What Amis [has] really done, as the chronologically ordered pieces in this collection demonstrate, was to go on a political journey. . . . [P]ossibly the most fully engaged writer of our age." -"The Times " "Amis is famously audacious, sardonic, andexcoriating. But in this bracing and corrective collection of intense and perceptive responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . . . Amis is doing far more than performing literary pyrotechnics or playing provocateur. . . . [He] writes with vehemence, daring, and verve because he schools himself in harsh truths, and because he cares." -"Booklist" "From the Hardcover edition."