An inspiring story of the first American women to go into space, charting their own course for the horizon.
The remarkable story of “the first six women astronauts NASA had ever chosen.”
Blazing a trail for others to follow is never easy, but the women featured in this book had it tougher than most. Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon were the first American women in space, and they had to fight every step of the way. Grush, a journalist specializing in space issues and the accompanying science, provides biographies of each, noting they had all been professionally successful before applying for the space program. The first generation of NASA astronauts had been military pilots, and a sexist culture had developed around their macho myth. It was only challenged with the development of the space shuttle program, which called for a broader recruitment strategy. Interestingly, Nichelle Nichols of Star Trek fame was enlisted to encourage applications from the public. It was successful, and in 1978, there were more than 8,000 people in the candidate pool. The training for the six was grueling, and the discrimination continued even after Ride became the first to get into space, in 1983. They often had to cope with being depicted as public relations novelties, but their outstanding performance across numerous missions eventually silenced the critics. Tragically, Resnik lost her life in the Challenger disaster. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that it took so long for women to be accepted by NASA. Even now, there are far fewer women than men in the program, but at least their presence in space is no longer seen as unusual. People who enjoyed Hidden Figures will find much to like in this book. Grush has an important story to tell, and she tells it well.
An inspiring story of the first American women to go into space, charting their own course for the horizon.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982172800
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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