The New York Times Book Review - Jaroslav Kalfar
One would think tales of space travel should overshadow any Earthbound life story, but in Endurance, Kelly's humor and self-awareness when relating his experiences at home make them just as absorbing as those aboard the station…Kelly's sharp self-observation and narrative poignancy make for a fascinating tale of a life lived on Earth, too, and the value of the book is heightened by its glimpses beyond the astronaut's veil. Behind the imposing spacesuit and perfect smile is a three-dimensional person, and Endurance offers brilliant insight into the human aspect of space travel by paying equal attention to the origin story as to its climax among the stars…The professional recollections could stand alone just fine without [the] intimate details, but the humanity behind them underlines Kelly's dedication to the project of writing a full portrait of his life. He doesn't hide behind the infinite achievements and fascinations he encountered in space; he readily acknowledges his failures, shortcomings and heartbreaks.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
11/27/2017
Recently retired astronaut Kelly—who holds the American record for the longest consecutive stretch of days in space—brings a no-nonsense, straightforward style of delivery to the audio edition of his memoir. A New Jersey native whose father and mother were police officers, Kelly embarked on his NASA career after service as a Navy pilot. In the book he tackles such weighty matters as marriage and family struggles, personal and national tragedies, and the loneliness of extended missions on the International Space Station. He doesn’t miss a beat with regard to enunciation and pronunciation and shifts gears smoothly between the space travelogue and biographical threads. His anecdotes about cross-cultural relationships with Russian cosmonauts on the station—along with quotidian details about to eating and going to the bathroom in space—provide an opportunity for his droll wit to shine through. Listeners with at least some appreciation for deadpan delivery will be satisfied. A Knopf hardcover. (Oct.)
Publishers Weekly
★ 10/23/2017
Kelly, a former astronaut who spent a record-setting year aboard the International Space Station (ISS), shares his experiences of space travel in this fascinating memoir. He shifts between the many aspects of his year-long project (“As much as I worked on scientific experiments, I think I learned at least as much about practical issues of how to conduct a long-range exploration mission”) and his early life. After growing up influenced by Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, he pursued a career as a fighter pilot, a test, pilot, and finally an astronaut. Throughout, Kelly gives the reader a sense of what life is like inside the ISS, where there are “rooms upon rooms, each of which serve different purposes, its own equipment and hardware, and its own feeling and smell.” He is unsparing in detailing the danger that “space junk” presents to the space station (“If the satellite hits, the resulting destruction would be... akin to a nuclear explosion”), but he also often displays a sense of humor, especially when describing his capsule’s reentry into Earth’s atmosphere (“As soon as you realize you’re not going to die, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have in your life”). His is an inspirational story of true endurance under pressure. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Captivating, charming . . . . [Kelly] pulls back the curtain separating the myth of the astronaut from its human realities. . . . It is easy to imagine future generations of explorers and daredevils harnessing the lessons and truths within the pages of ‘Endurance’ as the blueprints for their own trips into the unknown.” —Jaroslav Kalfar, The New York Times Book Review
“[Endurance] is a memoir of the right stuff that will hypnotize any space geek.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Kelly brings life in space alive—the wonder and awe of it, and also the jagged edges, the rough parts of living in confined quarters in an alien element, far from everything familiar and beloved. . . . Endurance, with its honest, gritty descriptions of an unimaginable life, a year off Earth, is as close as most readers will come to making that voyage themselves.” —The Financial Times
“Kelly’s account is insightful, at times humorous, heart-tugging at others. And it’s inspiring enough to change the life of some lost kid, just like The Right Stuff did for him.” —USA Today
“For space junkies, it’s absolutely required reading. . . . We feel as though we’re right there with him. A great book.” —Booklist
“Scott Kelly’s saga is a deeply absorbing and vivid look at a year in space and the many trials and rigors of living weightless inside a football field-sized machine traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. But Endurance satisfies far more than the reader’s technological curiosities; it is replete with humor, thrills, surreal details, and recurring moments of ordinary humanity that turn Kelly’s tale into a loving tribute to the pioneering individuals who risk all to shepherd man’s exploration of the vast beyond.” —Khaled Hosseini, author of And the Mountains Echoed
“Read this book and you will believe in our American future, thrill at our human potential, and laugh at the absurdities of life. Endurance is about excellence and perspective, a memorable read.” —Senator Bill Bradley
“This isn’t your usual astronaut’s memoir.” —The Philadelphia Tribune
“Scott Kelly’s book is as close as I and most everyone else on Earth will ever get to experiencing the fascinating, complex, almost preposterously dangerous business of going into space. When I closed the covers, I felt like I had been out there. Endurance is an utterly gripping book that can stand comfortably in the company of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff.” —Charles C. Mann, author of 1491
“Scott Kelly’s memoir of his year in space and all that preceded it is the real thing—honest, dramatic, illuminating, and simply riveting. With clear, compelling writing, he reveals the nature of space exploration, the current state of the space program, and the raw experience of leaving Earth as has no other book.” —T.J. Stiles, author of Custer’s Trials
Library Journal
09/15/2017
Inspired by Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff (1979), Kelly became a navy pilot and astronaut. Before retiring from NASA, he earned the record for the most total time spent in space, including 340 consecutive days at the International Space Station. This memoir is filled with stories of the daring, patience, and humanity necessary to be an effective leader in space, along with the stress of being away from family. His brother Mark Kelly is also a retired astronaut; Scott tells of hearing about the 2011 shooting of his sister-in-law U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, from afar and subsequently leading a moment of silence in honor of the victims. While Kelly's story is personal, it's also a cautionary tale about the future of space exploration, especially if deeper investment is not made. VERDICT Kelly's down-to-earth personality, humor, and blog SteveKelly.com have earned him a devoted following. Highly recommended to anyone who has an interest in memoirs or space travel.—Beth Dalton, Littleton, CO
OCTOBER 2017 - AudioFile
Fulfilling the responsibilities of both author and narrator, astronaut Scott Kelly shares his memoir of his preparation, training, and execution of a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station. While he effectively describes the unique challenges of lengthy spaceflight, Kelly’s monotone, sadly, does little to enhance his story. He fails to to breathe much life into experiences that by their very nature are completely hostile to human life. His story itself, however, is focused and compelling. Among the most enlightening aspects are his reflections on his ISS associates, who hailed from Russia, Japan, Canada, Europe, and the United States. Listeners with an interest in the space travel will likely enjoy this production despite the low-key narration. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-08-07
A four-time veteran of off-planet missions, including a year aboard the International Space Station, offers a view of astronautics that is at once compelling and cautionary.Why go into space in the first place? Kelly ponders that existential question early on, the whys and wherefores of entering into the strangest of strange environments and potentially suffering all manner of consequences. He replies, "I have a few answers I give to this question, but none of them feels fully satisfying to me." Among those answers, perhaps, are because it's extremely exciting to go where no one—very few people, anyway—has gone before, and after all, Kelly still holds the American record for consecutive days spent in outer space. Naturally, that comes at a cost; his book opens with an alarming portrait of edema, rashes, and malaise, and hence another answer emerges: we can't go to, say, Mars without understanding what space flight does to a human body. Some of Kelly's descriptions seem a little by-the-numbers, the equivalent of a ball player's thanking the deity for a win—a spacegoing colleague is "sincere and enthusiastic without ever seeming fake or calculating," while a Russian counterpart is "a quiet and thoughtful person, consistently reliable." Nonetheless, Kelly's book shines in its depiction of the day-to-day work of astronautics and more particularly where that work involves international cooperation. On that score, there's no better account of the cultural differences between Right Stuff-inculcated NASA types and Yuri Gagarin-inspired cosmonauts: "One difference between the Russian approach to spacewalking and ours," he writes, "is that the Russians stop working when it's dark." It's fascinating stuff, a tale of aches and pains, of boredom punctuated by terror and worries about what's happening in the dark and back down on Earth. A worthy read for space buffs, to say nothing of anyone contemplating a voyage to the stars.
