9.4 /10 1 Votes
5/5 Barnes & Noble Publication date 1974, 2001 & 2009 Dewey Decimal 629.45/0092 B 21 Originally published 1974 OCLC 897906 | 4.4/5 Goodreads Language English ISBN 0-8154-1028-X LC Class TL789.85.C65 A3 1998 Publisher Rowman & Littlefield Subjects Autobiography, Science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Followed by Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places Nominations National Book Award for Biography Astronaut books A Man on the Moon: The Voya, Riding Rockets, Magnificent Desolation: The Long, Falling to Earth: An Apollo 15, We Seven | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys is an autobiographical book written by the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 astronaut, Michael Collins. It was released in 1974 and has a foreword written by Charles Lindbergh. An updated version was re-released in 2009 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing.
The book covers his life as a test pilot in the United States Air Force, his selection as an astronaut and his spacewalks on Gemini 10 and historic flight as the Command Module pilot on Apollo 11. Collins presents some candid insights into his astronaut colleagues, including Neil Armstrong ("I can't offhand think of a better choice to be the first man on the moon") and Buzz Aldrin ("would make a champion chess player; always thinks several moves ahead").
Reception
In his review for TIME magazine, Robert Sherrod calls it "the best-written book yet by any of the astronauts". As an author, Collins works without assistance from ghost writers, stating that "No matter how good the ghost, I am convinced that a book loses realism when an interpreter stands between the storyteller and his audience". Collins has subsequently released further titles, including Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places (1976), Liftoff: The Story of America's Adventure in Space (1988) and Mission to Mars (1990).