REVIEW: American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley

American Moonshot is a different look at the space race than I’m used to. From World War II until the assassination of President Kennedy so many things had to come together in order to give the moon landing momentum, and this book is a very detailed and interesting look at them. I’ve read many, many books about NASA in the 60’s, but never one that looked at the behind the scenes politics in the way this one did.

Readers should be aware that the astronauts never make it to the moon in this book. It wraps up right around the time Kennedy was assassinated. I did enjoy learning about all of the back channel negotiations that took place in the early years of NASA, but missed the payoff of the successful moon landing. I would recommend this to any NASA fan.

One of my favorite things to do every year is to listen to all of the nominees of the Audie Awards history/biography category. This year’s nominees were:

American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley Narrated by Stephen Graybill, published by HarperAudio
The First Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch, narrated by Scott Brick, published by Macmillan Audio
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep, narrated by Hillary Huber, published by Penguin Random House Audio
The Queen by Josh Levin, narrated by January LaVoy, published by Hachette Audio
Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense by Dan Abrams and David Fisher, narrated by Roger Wayne and Dan Abrams, published by Harlequin