I was all set to review the last of the Harry Potter books this week, but then I found a second hand copy of Moonfire by Norman Mailer in a second hand shop for one penny, so I had to share it – if only to brag about the fact it cost me a single penny. Look at it here, crammed full of jaw dropping photos (Moonfire is a collection of articles that Mailer wrote for Life magazine, who had exclusive access to the astronauts):
Buzz Aldrin sets up an experiment on the moon (from Moonfire by Norman Mailer) 
Buzz Aldrin on a spacewalk taken by Jim Lovell on Gemini XII (from Moonfire by Norman Mailer) 
Neil Armstrong approaches the flying bedstead ((from Moonfire by Norman Mailer) 
Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin board Apollo XI (from Moonfire by Norman Mailer) 
Apollo XI the night before the launch (from Moonfire by Norman Mailer)
These photos are amazing. Every page looks like it has had a thousand pounds spent on it.
And on top of it all, you’ve got Mailer’s writing too. I realize Mailer is divisive – a lot of people just don’t like his stuff, or find him arrogant, or too self involved, and I’d be hard pushed to find a counter argument to any of these arguments in Moonfire. But still, his writing is fantastic. Like his take on the actual launch of Apollo 11:
“The flames were enormous. No one could be prepared for that. Flames flew in cataract against the cusp of the flame shield, and then sluiced along the paved ground down two opposite channels in the concrete, two underground rivers of flame which poured into the air on either side a hundred feet away, then flew a hundred feet further. Two mighty torches of flame like the wings of a yellow bird of fire flew over a field, covered a field with brilliant yellow bloomings of flame, and in the midst of it, white as a ghost, white as the white of Melville’s Moby Dick, white as the shrine of the Madonna in half the churches of the world, this slim angelic mysterious ship of stages rose without sound out of its incarnation of flame and began to ascend slowly into the sky, slow as Melville’s Leviathan might swim, slowly as we might swim upward in a dream looking for the air. And still no sound.”See? Great isn’t it? And all for just one penny. Wonders never cease.
So what do you think? Have you read it? Did you like it? Would you recommend it?
Let me know in the comments!
Want to check out other books on the race for space? Well look no further:
Review: Red Moon Rising by Matthew Brzezinski - Fascinated by the space race? Then this is a good place to find out how it all started. Its a behind-the-scenes (or maybe behind-the-iron-curtain?) look at the intense competition that spurred on the race for space
Review: Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins - The story of how Michael Collins made it to the moon without actually going to the moon. It’s superb.
Review: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe - Where astronaut Pete Conrad ties a poo in a little ribbon and bow for a medical test.
Review: Moonglow by Michael Chabon - The Pulitzer Prize winning author, Michael Chabon, returns with a family saga that examines an uncomfortable truth about the morally ambiguous times we live in.
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