Welcome to Litsy!

First Mary Roach...the hype is real! Her writing and focus is so interesting.

Today I finished the last read-aloud session of the academic year with the tagged book. I volunteered to bring my school's book bin back to the main office next week and to pick up and return as many as three other bins from other schools. I'm in good shape, but lugging this bin a city block to my car left me a sweaty mess with an ache in my back, so I ordered a heavy duty wagon to help with the other bins. Volunteering can get expensive!

😬Forgot to include this book for the month of February 2025 Book #9

What can I say about this book? For me was more like a reflection of these characters about themselves and life during their travel. A philosophical thinking, but didn‘t feel it like a novel with a plot. But judges have more literary experience than me. 😄 3.5⭐️ I liked it but didn‘t love it. Maybe a re-read? 🤷🏽‍♀️

My new audiobook, from 1993. Yes, I am partially listening to this because the author and I share last names.

The author goes into great detail about the history of NASA, government contractors, and astronauts. While the book is about the Challenger you learn a lot about the workings of getting all space shuttles into orbit. Once again we find out that greed and not listening to the experts is the thing that will doom a project every time. What a tragedy. Great work writing a riveting book that was never a slog to get through despite all the detail.

The best way to spend election day!
Fingers crossed 🤞

Probably if you are an American of a certain age you will have a Vivid memory of the day the Challenger exploded killing all 7 aboard. This book takes you through a history at NASA from the first Apollo to that awful day. He walks you through the science and the politics, the human error and hubris that lead to the explosion and what could have been done differently. Incredibly well researched and with easy to follow language and narrative.

This is a cute book about stars. It has flaps for those surprises when we read to our toddlers. One #ISpyBingoMarch @TheAromaofBooks

#Read2025

I finished this last week but I‘m behind in reviews. Read for #MonthlyNonFiction2025 it was also one of my April #Roll100 picks (#16 Any Non-Fiction). It‘s an interesting juxtaposition to read this book while watching random famous people try to pass themselves off as astronauts & having Nancy Drew solve a mystery with exploding oranges at Cape Canaveral. I remember being in class (college) in the morning when they wheeled in a tv & ⬇️

This is not your typical science fiction novel. I've seen it described as a "love letter to Earth," and I'd say that's very apt. I kept wondering when the story was going to "start" at first until I realized...this is the story. It's a rumination on Earth and space and humanity from the viewport of a space station. It's slow and maybe sometimes lingers too long on which exact locations the orbit is viewing from space, but lovely overall.