Out of This World: Our Best Space-themed Books

Today marks the 55th anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the moon, and to celebrate we'd like to showcase our best space-themed books.  While you're at it, don't forget to reserve our high-tech telescope from the EBPL's makerspace and fill out your summer reading handout with your favorite literary work about outer space.  

American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race by Douglas Brinkley
As the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing approaches, the award winning historian and perennial New York Times bestselling author takes a fresh look at the space program, President John F. Kennedy’s inspiring challenge, and America’s race to the moon.Drawing on new primary source material and major interviews with many of the surviving figures who were key to America’s success, Brinkley brings this fascinating history to life as never before.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince.  With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach 
Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year?
To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth.

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
Future generations will look back on our epoch as the time when the human race finally broke into a radically new frontier—space. In Pale Blue Dot, Sagan traces the spellbinding history of our launch into the cosmos and assesses the future that looms before us as we move out into our own solar system and on to distant galaxies beyond. The exploration and eventual settlement of other worlds is neither a fantasy nor luxury, insists Sagan, but rather a necessary condition for the survival of the human race.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

Chris Hadfield is known for the David Bowie music video he made while aboard the International Space Station. In this book, the Canadian astronaut documents his sometimes fearful, sometimes exhilarating, and overall crazy preparations for living in space. This fantastic book will teach you how to think like an astronaut, a useful skill for living everyday life.

Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space 
ABC reporter Lynn Sherr, who covered NASA as it became more inclusive of female astronauts, tells the story of Sally Ride—the astronaut who became the first American woman in space in 1983. Though Ride left NASA in 1987 after flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she served on the investigating panels of both the Challenger and Columbia disasters—citing NASA’s rush to meet deadlines as one of the factors behind the tragedies. Ride kept her personal life private; but with insights from her family and partner, this biography is full of detail about the life of a revolutionary woman.

Death by Black Hole: And other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil Degrasse Tyson 
Bringing together more than forty of Tyson's favorite essays, Death by Black Hole explores a myriad of cosmic topics, from what it would be like to be inside a black hole to the movie industry's feeble efforts to get its night skies right. One of America's best-known astrophysicists, Tyson is a natural teacher who simplifies the complexities of astrophysics while sharing his infectious fascination for our universe.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly 
You’ve seen the Oscar-nominated film, but have you read the book? Margot Lee Shetterly’s biographical book about the Human Computers, including Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, uncovers a forgotten piece of important history. Prior to John Glenn orbiting Earth, these dedicated female mathematicians calculated the numbers used to launch rockets into space. Covering World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Space Race, Hidden Figures offers enormous insight into the people behind the scenes that made space travel possible.