The Right Stuff

Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

Gene Kranz · 539 pages

"Kranz was flight director for both Apollo 11, the mission in which Neil Armstrong fulfilled President Kennedy's pledge, and Apollo 13. He headed the Tiger Team that had to figure out how to bring the three Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth. (In the film Apollo 13, Kranz was played by the actor Ed Harris, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance.)". "In Failure Is Not an

A Man on the Moon

Andrew Chaikin, Michael Kramer · 688 pages

 For the 25th anniversary of the first moon landing, a winning and detailed account of the Apollo astronauts, a dozen of whom were the first human beings to walk on the face of the moon. The strength of the book lies in Chaikin's exhaustive research, including interviews with all 24 Apollo astronauts. Chaikin, an editor of Sky and Telescope, draws on the wealth of material from NASA's files--incl

Apollo 8

Jeffrey Kluger · 320 pages

Recounts the bold but dangerous mission to secure America's position as the first nation to reach the moon, revealing the dangers endured by its crew and the ways the mission brought renewal to a country ravaged by assassinations and war.

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Adam Higginbotham · 538 pages

Divinity

Matt Kindt · 528 pages

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union green-lit a dangerously advanced mission. They sent a man farther into the cosmos than anyone has gone before or since. Lost in the stars, he encountered something unknown. Now he has returned, crash-landing in the Australian Outback. The few that have been able to reach him believe him to be a deity -- one that can bend matter, space, and even time

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

Bill Bryson · 288 pages

Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West.Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have l

Space

James A. Michener · 796 pages

Engineer Stanley Mott, astronomy student John Pope, naval hero Norman Grant, and rocket engineer Dieter Kolff serve as principals in the forty-year history of America's space program and share the complex drama with numerous others.

Omon Ra

Victor Pelevin · 153 pages

Omon Ra, by the gifted Russian writer Victor Pelevin, is a pointed, dead-on-satire of the now-defunct Soviet space program, and a moving account of a cosmonaut's coming-of-age. The story is told in the beguiling voice of its young protagonist, Omon Ra, whose odd name combines a term for the Soviet special forces with the name of the sun god in Egyptian mythology. Ever since he was a boy, Omon has

The Astronaut Wives Club

Lily Koppel · 311 pages

"THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB is spectacular, both in its intimacy and its reach. Lily Koppel pulls out delicious behind-the-scenes details of the stresses, formalities, pleasures, and travails of being the women behind the men on the moon." --KAREN ABBOTT, AUTHOR OF *AMERICAN ROSE* AND *SIN IN THE SECOND CITY* **THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB** As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on

The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight

Martha Ackmann · 280 pages

In 1961, just as NASA launched its first man into space, a group of women underwent secret testing in the hopes of becoming America's first female astronauts. They passed the same battery of tests at the legendary Lovelace Foundation as did the Mercury 7 astronauts, but they were summarily dismissed by the boys' club at NASA and on Capitol Hill. The USSR sent its first woman into space in 1963; th

Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon

Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton, Jay Barbree, Howard Benedict · 396 pages

Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon

Craig Nelson · 404 pages

A richly detailed and dramatic account of one of the greatest achievements of humankindAt 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. It carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins to the last frontier of human imagination: the moon.Rocket Men is the thrilling story of the

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream

Tanya Lee Stone · 139 pages

They had the right stuff. They defied the prejudices of the time. And they blazed a trail for generations of women to follow. What does it take to be an astronaut? Excellence at flying, courage, intelligence, resistance to stress, top physical shape — any checklist would include these. But when America created NASA in 1958, there was another unspoken rule: you had to be a man. Here is the tale

Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space

Chris Jones · 296 pages

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

Steven Johnson · 322 pages

"Explores the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves entertained. Play has always been more important than most people realize. In this vivid examination of the power of play and delight, Steven Johnson offers a surprising history of popular entertainment. Roving from medieval kitchens and ancient taverns to casinos and shopping malls, he locates the cutting edge of innovation

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

Ben Macintyre · 364 pages

Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot

Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard · 325 pages

In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Alan Dulles, director of the Central Intelligenc

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Steven Levy · 455 pages

Today, technology is cool. Owning the most powerful computer, the latest high-tech gadget, and the whizziest website is a status symbol on a par with having a flashy car or a designer suit. And a media obsessed with the digital explosion has reappropriated the term "computer nerd" so that it's practically synonymous with "entrepreneur." Yet, a mere fifteen years ago, wireheads hooked on tweaking e

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World

Steven L. Kent · 616 pages

This book is a history of the Video Game Industry, from types of electronic entertainment that were available before video games, to the improvements up until the year 2001. It begins with a look at the origins of Pinball, and other novelty games, then on to games that were played on giant computers, and then finally to the invention of the Video game, and the growth of the industry. Each section

Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda

Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton, Henry R. Schlesinger · 480 pages

From two men who know how espionage really works, an unprecedented history--heavily illustrated with never-before-seen images--of the CIA's most secretive operations and the gadgets that made them possible. What is an invisible photo used for? What does it take to build a quiet helicopter? How does one embed a listening device in a cat? These may sound like challenges for James Bond's fictional ga

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Mary Roach · 334 pages

Space is devoid of the stuff humans need to live: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh veg, privacy, beer. How much can a person give up? What happens when you can't walk for a year? Is sex any fun in zero gravity? As Mary Roach discovers, it's possible to explore space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a 17,000-mile-per-hour crash test of NASA's space capsule, she

Berlin 1961

Frederick Kempe · 640 pages

Based on a new documents and interviews, this work is a look at the Berlin Crisis of 1961, with powerful applications for the present. In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called it "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War, and more pe

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat

Bee Wilson · 371 pages

Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious—or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, reveal

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Simon Singh · 402 pages

In his first book since the bestselling *Fermat's Enigma*, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisit