First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong
by James Hansen
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List Price: ££9.99
Our Price: ££3.39
Your Save: £ 0.00 ( % )
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780743492324
ISBN: 0743492323
Label: Pocket Books
Number Of Pages: 784
Publication Date: 2006-06-05
Publisher: Pocket Books
Studio: Pocket Books
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Big Book About a Big Man
Comment: In two hundred years time very few people now alive will be routinely known and their names and deeds recalled. Only historians will be be familiar with the names of pygmies such as Bush and Blair. However, we live in a culture which immortalises great explorers - Magellan, Columbus, Cook, Amundsen, Hillary & Tenzing Norgay and many others. In our time Neil Armstrong joined this exclusive group along with Yuri Gagarin.
I would go so far as to say that the Apollo mission to the moon was the defining cultural statement of identity made by mankind in the second half of the twentieth century. It was our equivalent of building stonehenge, the great wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, the great mediaeval cathedrals, the voyages of discovery in small wooden ships and the great Victorian engineering achievements. It set down a mark for future generations to get a measure of us. It was as if we were saying to posterity 'look at this and wonder at us that we could do this in our time. This is the most difficult thing we can do at this time. Judge us by this.'
Whilst Apollo was an immense engineering and scientific project it was also one of the greatest human adventures of modern times. And at the centre of this adventure was an enigma, Neil Armstrong. Armstrong is a quiet man from Ohio who developed an early interest in aviation that takes him into the military and the Korean war. Later he becomes a brilliant test pilot and this leads to his involvement with the space programme. It is extraordinary that this is the first full biography that has been written about Armstrong with his co-operation. It is quite amusing that in an extrovert nation such as the US, which seems to like its super heroes to be big, loud, brash and in your face, Armstrong comes across as introverted and self-contained with no interest at all in celebrity or fame. He has spent most of his post Apollo life living quietly on a farm in Ohio.
I admire the author's perseverance in persuading Armstrong to co-operate in the first place as this was evidently not easy. Despite all the difficulties he has produced a big and worthy book. It's clear, reading between the lines, that Armstrong was not the easiest man to work with and his co-operation was less than total. Nevertheless, this is the best book you're ever going to get about Neil Armstrong. If you are interested in his life and remarkable achievements this is the one to buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but perhaps not perfect
Comment: Having looked forward to a 'life of Neil Armstrong book' for most of my life being a real Apollo fan. I did enjoy reading First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong. This book is well researched, has some good pictures and for the first time the reader can learn about the 'real Neil Armstrong'. There is much more to Mr.Armstrong than being the first man on the moon.
A great read - will be liked by space buffs, maybe a little dry for those who are not!
Customer Rating:
Summary: This should be a fascinating book...
Comment: ...but is by far and way the worst written book I have read in years. I cannot fathom how anyone can make the story of travelling and landing on the moon so uninteresting. There is page after page after page of irrelevant data which leaves you feeling cheated of precious time.
I have no doubt this is an incredibly well researched book, but so is an encyclopedia and I have no interest in reading one from cover to cover.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Award Winning!
Comment: This book has just earned the title of "Outstanding Academic Book" of 2006, awarded by CHOICE magazine and the American Library Association. It has also won the top book award of the American Astronautical Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. As Walter Cronkite says on the cover of the book, it is "a book for all time."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Plane Spotter's Delight
Comment: Neil's forebears came from Scotland, but none was William Wallace or Robert the Bruce, or Bonny Prince Charley.
When Neil was at Primary school it is thought that, on occasions, he may have got a gold star. But there is no documentation on the matter.
A nasty man called Yeager wrote some stories about Neil but they were probably not what occurred.
A chap called Wolfe wrote a book which exaggerated a lot of things and some of them weren't how Neil remembers them.
Neil flew a lot of state of the art planes, sometimes for hours on end, and he did a lot of take offs and landings, and all his bosses thought he was an OK guy, most of the time.
If you are a plane spotter or an insomniac you will love this book.
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