Welcome to Litsy!

This is a terrific book - a narrative nonfiction history of the Apollo program told mainly through the astronauts. The book will win over jaded resistant readers and often keep us glued. The astronauts are super smart, but also foolish and emotionally distant.

One thing that struck me was the scale of the moonscape. Pike‘s Peak sized mountains outside the landers.

This held no interest for me. The idea of being trapped in a spaceship with no gravity and mushy food is my worst nightmare & not something I want to read about. Then to be told the earth looks beautiful from space is stating the obvious & becomes repetitive. I bailed at p9 but tried a later page to give it another chance: Anton remembering a dream. Too slow for me & the characters are only loosely connected (by their job) so there was no tension.

#weekendreads

Finishing up Boots on the Ground, which is very good , and starting Orbital for book club.

Rotating about the earth in their spacecraft they are so together, and so alone, that even their thoughts, their internal mythologies, at times convene.
#FirstlineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

First Mary Roach...the hype is real! Her writing and focus is so interesting.

Today I finished the last read-aloud session of the academic year with the tagged book. I volunteered to bring my school's book bin back to the main office next week and to pick up and return as many as three other bins from other schools. I'm in good shape, but lugging this bin a city block to my car left me a sweaty mess with an ache in my back, so I ordered a heavy duty wagon to help with the other bins. Volunteering can get expensive!

😬Forgot to include this book for the month of February 2025 Book #9

What can I say about this book? For me was more like a reflection of these characters about themselves and life during their travel. A philosophical thinking, but didn‘t feel it like a novel with a plot. But judges have more literary experience than me. 😄 3.5⭐️ I liked it but didn‘t love it. Maybe a re-read? 🤷🏽‍♀️

My new audiobook, from 1993. Yes, I am partially listening to this because the author and I share last names.

The author goes into great detail about the history of NASA, government contractors, and astronauts. While the book is about the Challenger you learn a lot about the workings of getting all space shuttles into orbit. Once again we find out that greed and not listening to the experts is the thing that will doom a project every time. What a tragedy. Great work writing a riveting book that was never a slog to get through despite all the detail.

The best way to spend election day!
Fingers crossed 🤞