Anniversary

This blog has now been going for a year.
Here are a few statistics related to that period between 4th November 2009 and 3 November 2010

Books completed: 55
Non fiction 24
Fiction 31

Top 10 fiction in order of reading:
Worldshaker, Richard Harland
Blackout, Connie Willis
Slam, Nick Hornby
My Legendary Girlfriend, Mike Gayle
Anita and Me, Meera Syal
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde,
For All Time, Meredith Resce
All Clear, Connie Willis
Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde
Brand New Friend, Mike Gayle

Not quite making top 10 fiction list:
Mr Commitment, Mike Gayle
I Am Number Four, Pittacus Lore
Reckless, Cornelia Funke

Top 5 non-fiction:
Animal Vegetable Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver
Howards End is on the Landing, Susan Hill
A Man on the Moon, Andrew Chaikin
Foxeys Hangout, Cathie Gowdie
The Alternative Kitchen Garden, Emma Cooper.

Not quite making the top 5 non fiction list:
Like Me, Chely Wright
Our Hands Are Stained With Blood, Michael Brown.

Now the first year of the blog has been completed, I am turning to the calendar year.
So far I’ve read 45 books in 2010. I would like to at least equal the anniversary total of 55 books by the end of the year and hopefully exceed that by reaching 60.

Binary Moon: two views of the Apollo Missions

Alan Shepard & Deke Slayton were two of the original intake of astronauts for the American space program. Shepard was the first American into space but soon after was removed from active flight duty due to an ear problem that affected his balance. Slayton was also removed from flight duty because of a minor heart problem. These two men remained with NASA as managers of the astronaut department

The writing of Moon Shot is credited to Shepard and Slayton but its writing had a significant contribution from Jay Barbree and Howard Benedict, journalists with a background in aerospace reporting.

Moon Shot gives a good general (and brief) coverage of the space race of the 1960s – early 70s, with a more detailed concentration on the roles of Shepard and Slayton and how they overcame their health issues to be reinstated to active flight service. Shepard was reinstated in time to command Apollo 14 and become the 5th man to walk on the moon. Slayton missed out on a moon mission and barely scraped into the last pre-shuttle mission, a joint USA- USSR flight in which the rendezvous and docking of the two nations' craft was achieved.

I read the book immediately after Andrew Chaikin’s A Man on the Moon and my reading experience suffered because of it. Chaikin’s book is much more detailed and to my mind much better written. He interviewed almost every surviving astronaut from the Apollo era as well as their wives and many of those behind the scenes. His descriptions of events and memories were written using information gained from these interviews but without the obvious flights of imagination used in Moon Shot.

In my previous post I mentioned the Moon Shot account of the first moon landing which gives an imaginative description of Neil Armstrong’s eyes as “tired but warm with anticipation”.
This was only one example of what marred the book. How about this description of the separation of the stages of a rocket?

“Explosive charges blew apart the two stages with all the velvety touch of a locomotive thundering off a high trestle to roll down a rocky slope”.

I also found that parts of the book were over-sentimentalised and soap-opera like. Yes, I’m sure that astronauts and their families did experience some strong emotions – but those feelings could have been explored with greater skill than was utilised.

In my previous post I described the book’s style as “new journalism gone mad”. So much was written that was not based on obtainable fact or observation – so much imaginative speculation was presented as fact (as in the Armstrong eyes example). “New Journalism” at its best gives literary style to description without resorting to unverifiable detail. At times it might get into the head of a “character” and explore his/her thoughts and emotions, but the exploration needs to be based on substantial evidence from interview with (and observation of) the person being portrayed.

In contrast, I don’t know whether there could be a better book of its type than Chaikin’s. It addresses the major developments in the space programme from the beginning through to the climax of the moon missions, examining every moon landing (and the aborted Apollo 13 flight) with enough detail to highlight the individual achievements of each Apollo crew.
The book provided the basis for Tom Hank’s mini series From the Earth to the Moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(TV_miniseries)

Not on OUR moon they haven't!!!

My first introduction to the space race came at a very early age during a journey to Sunday school.
Each Sunday morning my Aunt would pick me up from home and we would walk to the Methodist church about 15 minutes away. We would be accompanied by a boy two or three years older than myself who informed me that a Russian rocket had crashed on the moon*.
My initial response must have been one of shock, but common sense soon took over as I reassured myself that it wasn’t OUR moon that they’d crashed into but the Russian moon.
Despite his attempts, my older companion could say nothing to convince me that the “Russian moon” was the very same one that we could see in England.

A few years later my school class started to follow the progress of the Apollo moon program, though after more than forty years I can’t recall whether the interest started with Apollo 7 or 8. Certainly there would have been more interest in the latter mission considering it was the first time man had broken away from the earth to travel to the moon. It was a genuinely historic achievement perhaps best signified by a photograph taken on the flight, of the blue earth rising above the grey wasteland of the moon.

From that time onwards I was fascinated by anything space related and was caught up in the excitement leading up to the moon landing and shared concern over the fate of Apollo 13.
There were other missions to the moon and while possible I followed the diminishing amount of news devoted to those missions. The media and the general public seemed to lose interest when the novelty started to fade. Familiarity was starting to get close to breeding contempt and the last few moon missions were scrapped as the lessened public interest led to politically expedient funding cuts.

For decades NASA’ s manned space programme plodded along almost unnoticed by the general public – except when tragedy added enough spice to attract attention again.
The Challenger disaster was the first time American astronauts were lost during a mission. Exactly 19 years and one day earlier three astronauts had died in a fire during training on Apollo 1 but that had occurred out of the public eye. Challenger exploded on our TV screens ending a highly publicised mission in which a civilian, a teacher, was intended to add a more positive note to American space flight history than actually eventuated.
That tragedy briefly undermined any misconceptions the public may have developed about the potential dangers associated with manned space exploration. But the necessity of a lengthy investigation into the tragedy meant that the public’s attention had again drifted by the time the space shuttle program resumed.

I recall my feelings at the time of the Challenger incident. Along with the obvious horror regarding the loss of life I realised that had I been given the chance, I would have immediately joined a shuttle crew myself, despite the obvious risk. I’m not sure I’d be so willing now, not through concern of the dangers but because I now have other priorities.

What is the relevance to all of this on a blog about books?
I suppose this background is merely an introduction. I am currently reading Andrew Chaikin’s book A Man on the Moon, a history of the Apollo astronauts and their mission to reach the moon. I also have several others on the same topic waiting to be read when I’ve finished Chaikin’s 600+ page book.

The others include an authorised biography of Neil Armstrong, Charlie Duke’s autobiography (an autographed copy I’ll be receiving for my birthday. Shhh! I’m not supposed to know) and two volumes by Colin Burgess and Frances French, Into That Silent Sea and In the Shadow of the Moon.
I also have an Alan Bean book on order about his artworks in which he has painted aspects of the moon landings.
His paintings are unique due to his personal involvement in the program (he was the fourth man to walk on the moon); his use of his space suit boots and tools from Apollo 12 to create interesting texture; and the incorporation of materials from his spacecraft and also moon dust within his paintings. Examples of his artwork can be seen here: Alan Bean

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* This was probably Luna-5 which crashed during an attempted landing on 9 May 1965.