If you know about my no-crying rule for books, then you're probably wondering why I chose this book. I wondered the same thing. Fortunately, it was nothing like I expected. The focus of the story isn't on his escape from the burning tower, but on how he got to that point in the first place. A small part of each chapter tells us about his experience on 9/11, but most of the book is a flashback of Micheal's life. And an amazing life it is. We find out how he used to drive the neighbors crazy riding his bike all over town, and how he likes to mess with people by driving through his college campus.

I learned many things in this book that changed my perception of those with blindness. It reminded me of how I felt that everyone should read John Elder Robison's Be Different in order to get a perspective on how it feels to live with Asperger's.

This is a book about trust and courage on 9/11, but it's also a book about humor, love, and perseverance in life.

I got this book for free from the BookSneeze review program. ( )

As the title says, Thunder Dog is the story of a blind man and his guide dog surviving the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 by taking the stairs down from the 78th floor after the first plane hit. Michael and Roselle's tale is an amazing one. I just wish it had been given more page time. Each chapter starts with some of the story from 9/11 and then segues over to another aspect of Michael's life before eventually coming back to the title premise. It's not a bad memoir. I just had mismatched expectations for the book. ( )

Thunder Dog is the story of one visually impaired man and his guide dog. On September 11, 2001, the brave duo made it down 78 flights of stairs as the World Trade Center collapsed all around them. The rest of the book is about that man, Michael Hingson, and how he lives with blindness in a “light-dependent” world. It’s a little padded, and the prose is rather flat, but I found the narrative compelling nonetheless. ( )

5590. Thunder Dog The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero, by Michael Hingson with Susy Flory (read 29 Oct 2018) This book, published in 2011, tells the story of the author, who was on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, with his guide dog on 11 Sept 2001 when the plane hit. It tells of the descent down the stairs and how his dog performed--flawlessly, though the dog earlier that day was terrified by a thunder storm. The book also talks a lot about blindness, the author being blind from birth but how he was mainstreamed and obtained a college education and held responsible jobs, and got about incredibly well, having ridden a bicycle as a boy and doing well much of his life. It is an inspiring and amazing story. When the plane hits the building one has to remind oneself that he does survive. ( )

When the first plane hit the North Tower on the morning of 9/11, Michael Hingson was at work on the 78th floor, preparing to start a presentation to visiting clients of his employer, Quantum. The building shook, and tilted, and his sighted colleagues, who could see the burning papers and other debris falling, started to panic. It was Hingson, believing what he was told but not able to see it, and influenced by the calmness of his guide dog, Roselle, clearly indicating that they weren't in immediate danger, who took control and led an orderly evacuation of the office.

Thunder Dog interleaves the story of Hingson, Roselle, and Hingson's colleagues escaping from Tower One, with the story of Michael Hingson growing up blind in a family that refused to follow then-typical medical advice to isolate him in a home for the blind, but instead "mainstreaming" him before the term was invented. We see how his atypical upbringing--both the fact of his blindness, and the fact that his family expected and supported his full integration into everyday, "sighted" life, helped to develop the skills that in turn enabled him to be a leader in the 9/11 evacuation. Courage was necessary to be a steady, calm force in the stairwell of Tower One, but in many ways it took more courage to get to that point, to overcome assumptions, expectations, and bias to be working, productive professional despite the barriers created by not only his blindness but others' attitudes toward it. This is not the story of a dog, but the story of a partnership between dog and man, each supporting the other, putting their talents and strengths together for the benefit of not only themselves, but everyone around them.

Hingson tells his story with grace and humor, and it's read very effectively by Christopher Prince. As a bonus extra in this audio version, we get a couple of speeches and an interview that Hingson did, delivering even more effectively his wit, humor, and charm.

Highly recommended. ( )