Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight Hardcover – 24 Sept. 2014

Quick delivery, and product was as advertised

The boy loves space.

I picked up this book on impulse and was not disappointed. This is not a ‘warts and all’ biography of Neil Armstrong but a concise run through of the astronauts flying life from beginning to end. The narrative flows and the Gemini/Apollo flights are well handled.Just a shame that the illustrations are all in monochrome.

The writing is poor. There are numerous grammatical mistakes. The style is clumsy and in many cases simply unclear. The book is promoted on the basis of the author's personal relationship with Armstrong, but there is no content other than an occasional minor anecdote that is not available from public sources and other accounts.Perhaps if a good editor had worked on the book it could have been salvaged. As it is, the writing is excruciatingly bad, and there is no sense of narrative. Very disappointing.

As one who grew up with the space program and listened to the radio during the first moon landing and stayed up late to watch the walk, I picked up “Neil Armstrong: A Life In Flight” to learn more about the man and the age he helped create. I quickly realized that I had made a wise choice.This is a full length biography about the boy, fascinated with airplanes, who grew into the moon walker who was able to look back over a satisfying life and calmly contemplate the future. I learned much about Armstrong, from his home in small town Ohio, his life as a Navy pilot in Korea, a test pilot, astronaut training and his flights on Gemini 8 and Apollo 9. I had made an X-15 model but did not realize that Armstrong was one of its pilots. I remembered the stuck thruster on Gemini 8 but had no idea how rapidly it was rotating. The details of the trip to the moon and back were very interesting.Author Jay Barbree has given us more than a one man biography. Through that one life he tells the history of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. We are introduced to the spacecraft and the men who flew them, the friendships among the astronauts, the triumphs and tragedies they shared and the support they gave each other. Barbree’s writing style holds the reader’s interest while telling their stories, but never descending into scandal mongering. This is an entertaining read for any fan of the race to the moon.