Two audiobooks about the moon

I listened to two books on audio during my runs over the last few weeks.  (audio books don’t count towards my 12 books over the summer goal)

The first one was Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon.  a 2018 nonfiction book Written by Robert Kurson recounting NASA’s 1968 Apollo 8 mission, which was the first crewed spacecraft to reach the Moon and return safely to Earth.

This was a really good listen.  1968 was a year that had a lot going on in it.  There was societal and cultural upheaval.  And these men figured out how to fulfill JFK’s vision of getting to the moon.

They pulled forward and combined Apollo missions to beat the Russians to it.  They boosted 3 astronauts on top of the new Saturn Five Rocket to the moon, where they made 10 orbits and successfully returned to Earth.

I had listened to an earlier book by Kurson called “Shadow Divers” about the discovery and identification of a German WWII submarine wreck – but mostly about the deep-water divers who do such things for fun.  Having dabbled in SCUBA diving in my life I found that book equal parts terrifying and wonderful.

Like that book, Rocket Men is not so much about the known narrative of Apollo 8, but about these astronauts and the scientists and the engineers who had the hubris and conviction and discipline to make this a reality.

It makes you wonder if men and women of this legendary caliber will ever exist again.

Go listen to it.  It’s good.

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The second book, by comparison, is “Orbital” a 2023 novel by English writer Samantha Harvey.  This is a recent fiction novel that won a bunch of literary prizes.  I had to wait 3 months for a copy to become available and ironically it fell on the heels of my listening to “Rocket Men”.

This is part science fiction, part philosophy and part other things indescribable.  Because I was listening to it, I got the distinct impression that it was as much poetry and prose.  By that I mean it had a musical cadence to it.  It was narrative and characters but it had a unique rhythm that for some reason reminded me of Homer.

If you like deep thoughts and beautiful prose this is for you.  If you like well-defined narratives with beginnings and ends, maybe not so much.

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But what do these two distinctly different pieces have to say?  They both ask the question ‘who the hell are we puny humans to have the hubris to throw ourselves off our little dust ball and push ourselves outward into the universe?’

They both observe how beautiful and fragile our home, the Earth is.  Remember that iconic photo of earthrise from Apollo 8?  There it was.  Our home.  Mother Earth.  A blue ball suspended in trackless space.

It fills us with grandiose hope for our struggling species and great existential fear and awe at our puniness in the big universe.

Two books about the moon.