Book Review: Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins

About:

Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey by Michael Collins is a memoir of the famous NASA astronaut. Mr. Collins was part of the Gemini and Apollo missions, and his first-hand account is fascinating.

• 560 pages
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374537763

My rating for Carrying the Fire – 5
Buy Carrying the Fire from Amazon.com*
More Books by Michael Collins*

Thoughts:

This is a fascinating look into the history of the space person from a personal perspective. The tone is familiar, and friendly, as if the author and I were sitting over a cup of coffee swapping stories.

Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey by Michael Collins is a straightforward book, open and honest with self-deprecating humor sprinkled about. The fascinating part about this memoir is Mr. Collins’ perspective on historical events. He has no interest, for example, in describing the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts. Instead, his memory is that of being the only person available to drive to deliver the bad news to one of the wives before she turns on the TV or radio.

Unlike First Man, Neil Armstrong’s biography, there aren’t as many technical details or much politics as Buzz Aldrin’s Magnificent Desolation. Collins is appreciative of the chance he’s gotten to make history and is quick to give credit to those around him, and many more.

Mr. Collins covers his career in the United States Air Force and his astronaut career before Apollo 11. Like many, I’m sure, I read this book to hear about the moon mission, but the lead-up is truly engrossing and worth reading with, or without, the Pièce de résistance .

The memoir is intelligent and practical, engaging the reader in an articulated and fascinating narrative.  The great technological achievement of sending people to the moon, and safely back (the big achievement in my opinion) is told through his narrative, at times being alone behind the moon without contact with anyone at all for a time.

Buy Carrying the Fire from Amazon.com*
More Books by Michael Collins*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I bought this book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books