FEBRUARY 2019 - AudioFile
The history of the U.S. manned spaceflight program is well documented, but this chronicle provides insights that even well-read listeners will find interesting. The period covered runs from roughly Russia’s Sputnik in the 1950s through the Apollo 11 moon landing in the 1960s. Allan Robertson offers a smooth, solid narration. His generally even tone is suited to the work. But he alters that tone as needed to capture instances of drama, tragedy, humor, and historical importance without becoming cartoonish. With so many people involved, Robertson wisely chooses not to give each a distinctive voice. But the author clearly indicates quoted material, so there’s never a question as to who is speaking. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 01/14/2019
Donovan (A Terrible Glory) impressively chronicles the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, culminating in Americans’ successful landing on the moon in July 1969. He succinctly relates the major milestones of the space race: the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957, the selection and celebrity of NASA’s Mercury Seven astronauts, John F. Kennedy’s vow to put a man on the moon by decade’s end, John Glenn’s orbit of the earth, the increasingly advanced missions of Project Gemini, America’s mid-’60s push past the Soviets after years of technological inferiority, the fatal fire on Apollo 1 in 1967 that almost derailed the whole program, and NASA’s recovery (especially Apollo 8’s lunar orbit in December 1968). The final quarter of the book focuses on Apollo 11, from the rocky process of forming its team through its years of training, its lunar landing, Neil Armstrong’s first steps, and its return to Earth. Exceptionally researched, this exciting, sometimes harrowing book highlights the work not only of the pioneering astronauts but also of thousands of technicians and engineers. This is a perfect volume to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing and all that led up to it. Photos. Agent: B.J. Robbins, B.J. Robbins Literary Agency. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2019
"If you're looking for telling of the manned space program's story, you should start with James Donovan's Shoot for the Moon."—NPR
"Donovan's narrative is a well-crafted one...one of the best in print."—Science Magazine
"Vividly readable"—Christian Science Monitor
"Donovan combines his masterful research skills and narrative gifts in recounting the full story of the most famous Apollo trip...Donovan's history is a powerfully written and irresistible celebration of the Apollo missions."—Booklist (starred review)
"Exceptionally researched, this exciting, sometimes harrowing book highlights the work not only of the pioneering astronauts but also of thousands of technicians and engineers. This is a perfect volume to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing and all that led up to it."— Publishers Weekly (starred)
"This account reads like an adventure story."—The Columbus Dispatch
"Donovan's account of Apollo 11 is a breath-stopping page-turner."— Michael Barnes, Austin-American Statesman
"Shoot for the Moon is a gripping account of the dangers, the challenges, and the sheer determination that defined not only Apollo 11, but also the Mercury and Gemini missions that came before it."—BookPeople
"Its breadth and detail will give you a new appreciation for just how complex and dangerous this mission was. You'll come away marveling that, against all odds, we put people on the motherf**in' moon!"—Austin Chronicle
"This is the best book on Apollo that I have read. Extensively researched and meticulously accurate, it successfully traces not only the technical highlights of the program but also the contributions of the extraordinary people who made it possible."—Mike Collins, Command module pilot, Apollo 11
"A gripping yet wonderfully detailed account of one of humanity's greatest achievements. Shoot for the Moon gives a fascinating insight into the golden age of space exploration."—Tim Peake
"It was one of humankind's greatest achievements, and here, perhaps for the first time, is the whole story, fastidiously reported and elegantly told. With Shoot For the Moon, James Donovan captures it all-the science, the engineering, the clashing egos, the Cold War politics. But what's even more impressive, he does it without depriving us of the essential magic that was Apollo, this Promethean program that dared to aim as high and as far as man could go."
—Hampton Sides, author Ghost Soldiers, In theKingdom of Ice, and On Desperate Ground
"With a brilliant eye for detail and an elegant sense of historical narrative, Donovan's Shoot the Moon is sure to be a space race classic."
—Annie Jacobsen, bestselling author & Pulitzer Prize finalist
FEBRUARY 2019 - AudioFile
The history of the U.S. manned spaceflight program is well documented, but this chronicle provides insights that even well-read listeners will find interesting. The period covered runs from roughly Russia’s Sputnik in the 1950s through the Apollo 11 moon landing in the 1960s. Allan Robertson offers a smooth, solid narration. His generally even tone is suited to the work. But he alters that tone as needed to capture instances of drama, tragedy, humor, and historical importance without becoming cartoonish. With so many people involved, Robertson wisely chooses not to give each a distinctive voice. But the author clearly indicates quoted material, so there’s never a question as to who is speaking. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-12-30
A vigorous exploration of the Space Age, a frontier oddly befitting Wild West historian Donovan (The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo—and the Sacrifice that Forged a Nation, 2012, etc.).
The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Apollo 11 on the moon and Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step" pronouncement. That history and the long chain of efforts leading up to the landing have been well-documented, not least by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff. Even so, Dallas-based historian Donovan finds fresh things to say about the events—as when, for instance, he recounts Buzz Aldrin's constant lobbying to be the first to set foot on the moon, a campaign that his peers found tedious but not entirely unseemly. That Armstrong was chosen to lead and then kept in that role, Donovan writes, strongly reflects a priority: "NASA wanted to make a clear statement about the non-military nature of the landing and of the American space program as a whole," and Armstrong was both a civilian and senior in the hierarchy, making him a natural choice. Aldrin was privately devastated but put up a brave front. In Donovan's hands, pioneering space scientist Wernher von Braun gets some deliverance from the Tom Lehrer school of lampoonery: True, he'd worked for the Nazis, but he also made remarks about the Hitler regime critical enough to be charged with treason, interrupting his perhaps unlikely playboy lifestyle. Just so, Donovan turns to small but meaningful episodes that speak volumes: NASA's grudging addition of various lunar experiments "for the science guys"; Aldrin's ministering of Communion by means of a tiny vial of sacramental wine that he smuggled aboard for the purpose; the fact that only by landing there could we be sure that "the moon's color…was various shades of gray." The author closes with the hopeful thought that after a long hiatus, we may soon be heading back into space.
A welcome addition to the literature of space exploration.
