More than a quarter-century before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was immortalized by an act of unprecedented daring and beauty. In August 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit boldly—and illegally—fixed a rope between the tops of the still-young Twin Towers, a quarter mile off the ground. At daybreak, thousands of spectators gathered to watch in awe and adulation as he traversed the rope a full eight times in the course of an hour. In Man on Wire, Petit recounts the six years he spent preparing for this achievement. It is a fitting tribute to those lost-but-not-forgotten symbols of human aspiration—the Twin Towers.

In 1974, 100,000 people on the ground watched 24-year-old high wire artist Petit make eight crossings between the World Trade Towers. In this visually and verbally stunning book, Petit tells for the first time the story of his walk, from conception and clandestine planning to the performance and its aftermath. 140 illustrations.

A lyrical evocation of Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers.

“On the High Wire is fascinating to read. You will learn about the man, his work, his passion, his tenacity and lucidity” (Marcel Marceau) In this poetic handbook, written when he was just twenty-three, the world-famous high-wire artist Philippe Petit offers a window into the world of his craft. Petit masterfully explains how preparation and self-control contributed to such feats as walking between the towers of Notre Dame and the World Trade Center. Addressing such topics as the rigging of the wire, the walker’s first steps, his salute and exercises, and the work of other renowned high-wire artists, Petit offers us a book about the ecstasy of conquering our fears and reaching for the stars.

In the vein of The Creative Habit and The Artist’s Way, a manifesto on the creative process from a master of the impossible. Since well before his epic (and illegal) 1974 walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, Philippe Petit had become an artist who answered first to the demands of his craft—and not just on the high wire, but also as a magician, street juggler, visual artist, builder, and writer. He was a rebel and an autodidact, cultivating the attitudes, resources, and techniques to tackle even seemingly impossible feats. His outlaw sensibility spawned a unique approach to the creative process—an approach he shares, with characteristic enthusiasm, irreverence, and originality, in Creativity: The Perfect Crime. With the reader as his accomplice, Petit reveals fresh and unconventional ways of going about the artistic endeavor, from generating and shaping ideas to practicing, problem-solving, and ultimately pulling off the “coup” itself—executing a finished work. His strategies and insights will resonate with performers of every stripe (actors, musicians, dancers), practitioners of the non-performing arts (writers, artists), professionals in search of new ways of meeting challenges, and individuals simply engaged in the art of living creatively.

How does anyone get to the top of their field? We all know it takes hard work, dedication, and the occasional dose of luck, but what separates a wannabe from a winner? The Art of Doing brings together an incredible cross-section of individuals who are the at the top of their respective fields, from actor Alec Baldwin to New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, to and asks them each one question: how do you succeed at what you do? The advice that they share is illuminating, and occasionally surprising, providing their top ten strategies on how to achieve greatness in a variety of ways. From the practical ("How to Open a Restaurant and Stay in Business," by restaurateur David Chang) to the zany ("How to Live Life on the High Wire," by infamous World Trade Center tightrope walker Philippe Petit), each interview is a testament to the knowledge and experiences that these risk-taking, barrier-breaking individuals have used to achieve their own success. With its diverse perspectives and variety of opinions about how to be the best in any field, this book will shape readers' views of success and inspire them to carve out their own niche.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • Colum McCann’s beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire stunt, which is also depicted in the film The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s. Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.” A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal. Praise for Let the Great World Spin “This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and it’s a damned lot of fun to read, too. Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York. There’s so much passion and humor and pure lifeforce on every page of Let the Great World Spin that you’ll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed.”—Dave Eggers “Stunning . . . [an] elegiac glimpse of hope . . . It’s a novel rooted firmly in time and place. It vividly captures New York at its worst and best. But it transcends all that. In the end, it’s a novel about families—the ones we’re born into and the ones we make for ourselves.”—USA Today “The first great 9/11 novel . . . We are all dancing on the wire of history, and even on solid ground we breathe the thinnest of air.”—Esquire “Mesmerizing . . . a Joycean look at the lives of New Yorkers changed by a single act on a single day . . . Colum McCann’s marvelously rich novel . . . weaves a portrait of a city and a moment, dizzyingly satisfying to read and difficult to put down.”—The Seattle Times “Vibrantly whole . . . With a series of spare, gorgeously wrought vignettes, Colum McCann brings 1970s New York to life. . . . And as always, McCann’s heart-stoppingly simple descriptions wow.”—Entertainment Weekly “An act of pure bravado, dizzying proof that to keep your balance you need to know how to fall.”—O: The Oprah Magazine