Nonfiction Book Reviews

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand up to the Facts by Popular Mechanics is an excellent book on one of the biggest conspiracies out there right now. Move over UFO’s, forget JFK - did the federal government and/or another “shadowy group” orchestrate September 11, 2001? The resounding answer is no, and this book explains exactly why that is.

I had read several websites claiming to have inside knowledge on the federal government’s involvement in 9/11, and when I read their claims, it did sound plausible. Why did the 7th tower fall? Why didn’t someone intercept Flight 93? But despite their claims to be laying out the “true facts” of the case, the side “no one” wants you to know, I was fairly certain that something was missing here. The biggest question in my mind was the fact that it would have taken huge manpower to pull off a stunt like this, to coordinate it to look like an Al Qaeda job. Hundreds of people would have had to have been in on it. What are the chances that all of them would have kept quiet for all of this time? I’ve heard the saying that the only way to have three people keep a secret is not to tell the secret to two of them. How about keeping hundreds of people quiet? No way.

So I read this book with relish, because I was interested in seeing some real facts on what happened on 9/11. It was extremely well written, with a great format, and no technical jargon at all but instead laid out in layman’s terms. It went through conspiracy theory by conspiracy theory, and blew each of them to little smithereens. If you have any doubts about what happened on 9/11 - if you’ve read one too many wild conspiracy websites and started to wonder if what you’d read was true - you need to read this book. If you’re interested to see what Rosie and Charlie Sheen are blathering about, you need to read this book. Your opinion of them and their intelligence will fall immeasurably after reading it (and I like Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men. I just try to ignore his political views if at all possible. ;-)) If you want a book to explain why things happened the way they did (why didn’t we shot down the second plane when we realized that they were being used as missiles, why did the 7th tower fall when no plane struck it, etc) then you need to read this book.

I thought it was an excellent and quick read - I give it 5 stars!

Havs