posted 07-14-2008 11:57 PM               

• A Man on the Moon by Chaikin
  
• Carrying the Fire by Collins
  
• First Man by Hansen

posted 06-05-2010 04:12 PM            

However I did feel that the latter seemed to skip through the later voyages after Apollo 13 without as much detail as the earlier flights which may have been due to its title which was more concerned with the race which was already won. Does anyone agree with me on that point although it is still an outstanding book?

The third choice for me would be 'Deke' although 'Lost Moon/Apollo 13' runs it close. All the autobiographies and biographies of astronauts, cosmonauts, flight directors and controllers are well worth collecting as reading sometimes the same events from different viewpoints is very interesting.

posted 06-05-2010 07:44 PM               

Another book in the series, Homesteading Space is a brilliantly written story about the Skylab program, which several moonwalkers and those who might have been participated in. Alan Bean's in-flight diary of Skylab 2 provides great insight throughout the story.

Having said that, the titles mentioned previously are among the best! First Man, while considered a little dry, was a long-awaited and most important contribution to the Apollo legacy. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I think most here would agree that to get a more complete picture of the program, one needs to take a look at several of these titles to see the moon program from multiple perspectives.

posted 06-05-2010 08:24 PM               

A Man on the Moon - Andy Chaikin (Astronaut Perspective)

Apollo, The Race to the Moon - Charles Murray & Catherine Bly Fox (Engineer's Perspective

posted 06-06-2010 06:28 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by lm5eagle:
"Carrying The Fire" by Michael Collins is a must for a list such as this. It is arguably the best account ever written by one of the Apollo astronauts.

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• A Man on the Moon - Andrew Chaikin
  
• The Unbroken Chain - Guenter Wendt
  
• Failure is not an Option - Gene Krantz
  
• Flight - Chris Kraft
  
• Apollo - Murray & Cox
  
• Chariots for Apollo - Courtney, Grimwood, Swenson (NASA Publication)*
  
• Moonport - Benson , Faherty (NASA Publication)*

posted 06-06-2010 04:15 PM               

This book is simply spectacular. It still boggles my mind that Taschen issued this at $39.99...I've paid over twice that for far less impressive books. The quality of production is such that many illustrations seem almost three-dimensional. The only other book on the subject I can think of even approaching this quality is Michael Light's Full Moon (put that on your list as well).

As for the prose (and this is aside from the in-depth, informed captions accompanying every illustration), I will say first of all that I am not, generally speaking, a fan of Mailer as a writer. I've read several of his works besides Of a Fire on the Moon, and I tend to find his writing egotistical, self-indulgent, meandering, and freighted with all the stylistic and ideological baggage that characterizes the New Journalism of his peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s (though it should be remembered that the same school also gave us The Right Stuff.)

Thankfully, the text reprinted in Moonfire has been stripped of most of that baggage, which made Of a Fire on the Moon such a morass through which one had to wade to find insight. Instead, this book showcases Mailer's undeniable prescience and powers of observation, and his gift for giving resonance to both the most minute details of his experience covering the flight of Apollo 11, and conveying the "epicness" of the whole endeavor. His account of the crew's press conference, and his impressions of their personalities, are so piercing that you feel you're right there watching and listening. And I would defy you to find another more powerful account in print of the experience of the launch of Apollo 11 than Mailer's. It is, as his narrative surrogate Aquarius might say, appropriate to its measure.

posted 06-07-2010 07:10 AM               

1. Man on the Moon by Peter Fairley (the ITN science correspondent)
   
2. First on the Moon by two Time/Life reporters
   
3. We Reach the Moon by John Noble Wilford

posted 07-08-2010 06:02 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Tykeanaut:
I am thinking of buying Buzz Aldrin's "Magnificent Desolation" and Edgar Mitchell's "The Way of the Explorer." Are they a good read?

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Better buys, in my opinion, are:

• "Angle of Attack - Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon" by Mike Gray; W.W. Norton; IBSN 978 0 393 32513 3. [The story of the building of Apollo CM/2nd stage very much from a North American viewpoint.

• "How to Build Your Own Spaceship" by Piers Bizony; Portobello Books; IBSN 978 1 84627 125 0. [Provides an insight into some of the problems and solutions faced in putting a man into space.]

posted 07-08-2010 06:11 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by GoesTo11:
I'm going to court controversy here and add Norman Mailer's Moonfire as a must-have addition to the Apollo literary canon.

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