No Day Shall Erase You: The Story of 9/11 as Told at the National September 11 Memorial Museum

Published to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil, this official companion to the National September 11 Memorial Museum%E2%80%94located where the Twin Towers once proudly stood%E2%80%94transports readers back to that dark day and the ensuing weeks, months, and years. An engraving of a line from Virgil's Aeneid, "No day shall erase you from the memory of time," forged in steel recovered from the site of the attacks, is the centerpiece of a 140-foot-long, 34-foot-high concrete wall that separates the museum's public space from a repository of victims' remains not open to the public. As of the 15th anniversary, 40% of the victims had not yet been identified, despite "extraordinary efforts" to do so. The book presents the efforts to memorialize those victims in the museum and the behind-the-scenes strategies at work in, for example, presenting disturbing subject matter or archiving dust (considered by many survivors to be sacred). Vivid photos and several insightful essays by museum staff complement text written respectfully and with understated authority by Greenwald, the memorial and museum's director and executive vice president for exhibitions, collections, and education. The book is a tribute to those who died on 9/11 as well as a powerful exploration of collective memory. (Sept.)