magnetgrrl 's review for:

Moondust: In Search Of The Men Who Fell To Earth by Andrew Smith

5.0

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I found this book to be fascinating, uplifting, inspiring, and emotionally moving. It was well-written, and here and there quite humorous. I feel grateful in a surprising way after reading this, grateful and happy that someone attempted to interview these men, and that Andrew Smith got as close as he did to finding out the astronauts real thoughts on what it was like to be on the moon, and what it was like to come home after and live on the Earth. Smith has a gift for staying grounded in reality while letting his mind travel into the wondrous; he manages to capture all that was fantastic and inspiring about the Apollo program and the men who participated in it through describing his own memories and experiences growing up in America during the 60's and early 70's, but he never loses sight of the truth he is seeking or turns to simply repeating facts, lauding the entire endeavor, or gushing. I really enjoyed his personal musings on the Apollo program and the socio-political climate of America during that time, as well as his own "looking back on it all now" reflections. But the interviews with the astronauts are truly fantastic. He really probes their characters and their consciousnesses in search of the answers to his questions. And his questions may seem base on the surface perhaps, but I really feel like this book does a better job than anything else I've encountered of trying to capture "What was it like to be on the moon?" I find myself feeling... elated, and lucky that someone thought to explore this, and to search out these men, before it was too late. This book is a great read for anyone already interested in space exploration or the Apollo missions, obviously, but I really feel like anyone interested in humanity can enjoy this book and should pick it up. As Smith surmises at the end, "Was Apollo worth all the effort and expense? If it had been about the Moon, the answer would be no, but it wasn't, it was about the Earth," and "Through Apollo, the Moon did what it has always done: it shone fresh light on what was already there." Similar to the way in which going to the moon awakened and gave new perspective to humanity, Smith has definitely thrown fresh light onto the history of Apollo with this book, as well as on the culture that produced Apollo and the culture we're in today.