Book List: The Moon

On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 landed on the moon. In honor of the event’s 40th anniversary this month, I’m providing a list of moon-related reading.  I have steered away from general astronomy books, and confined myself to books about the earth’s moon. Otherwise, the list would go on forever. In the fiction books, the moon is either the setting or a significant force within the story. Many of the non-fiction titles are self-explanatory. I don’t feel the need to expound.

Enjoy your lunar reading odyssey.

Book List: The Moon

Fiction

Back to the Moon
Homer H. Hickam
Techno-thriller about the hijacking of a moon-bound space shuttle, written by NASA engineer and author of  the memoir Rocket Boys. Published in 2000.

Bouncing Off the Moon
David Gerrold
Three young brothers deal with their parents’ divorce by moving to the moon, only to become embroiled in corporate intrigue and conspiracies.  2002.

The First Men in the Moon
H.G. Wells
Classic Wells, published in 1901. But if you think this is the first published story set on the moon, scroll on down the list.

Have Spacesuit – Will Travel
Robert Heinlein
Classic Heinlein first published in 1958. Space adventure story aimed at younger readers. What boy wouldn’t want to win his own spacesuit and take a trip to the moon?

Inconstant Moon Trilogy:
Inconstant Moon
Fall Girl
Exit Strategy
Piers Askegren
More corporate intrigue on the moon. These are newer books, all published since 2005.

Lunar Descent
Alan M. Steele
Factory work is factory work, even on the moon. 1991.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Robert A. Heinlein
Three books in one about revolution brewing in the lunar colonies of the future. 1966.

The Moon Pool
Abraham Merritt
Magic portal activated by moonbeams. Published in 1919.

Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing: a Novel
John Calvin Batchelor
Historical fiction about the space race, written from a cosmonaut’s point of view. 1996

Roverandom
J.R.R. Tolkein
Written in 1925, published in 1998. (As a writer, this makes me all kinds of impatient.) In his quest to be real again, a dog searches the moon and elsewhere for the wizard who turned him into a toy.

Voyages to the Moon and the Sun
Cyrano de Bergerac
Yes, *that* Cyrano de Bergerac, from the 17th century.

Non-fiction

Apollo: the Epic Journey to the Moon
David West Reynolds
2002

Apollo: the Race to the Moon
Charles A. Murray
1990

Apollo 11: the NASA Mission Reports, Compiled from the NASA Archives
Published in three volumes 1999-2001.

Apollo 13
Jim Lovell
The moon landing that didn’t happen and how three astronauts survived disaster. 2006

The Big Splat, or, How Our Moon Came to Be
Dana Mackenzie
2003

Destination Moon: the Apollo Missions in the Astronauts’ Own Words
Rod Pyle      2007

Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Space Flight
David A. Mindell    2008

Firefly Moon Observer’s Guide
Peter Grego
It *is* an astronomy book, but focused solely on our moon.  2004

First Man: the Life of Neil A. Armstrong
James R. Hansen
Biography.  2006

The First Men on the Moon: the Story of Apollo 11
David M. Harland
2006

Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist
I.S. Shklovskii
1991

Fly Me to the Moon: an Insider’s Guide to the New Science of Space Travel
Edward Belbruno
2007

The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America’s Space Race
Eugene Cernan
Memoir by the commander of the final manned moon mission, recounting his years with NASA.  2000

Magnificent Desolation
Buzz Aldrin
Memoir by one of the Apollo 11 astronauts.  2009

A Man on the Moon: the Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts
Andrew Chaikin
2007

The Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb, NASA, and the Secret History of Project Apollo
Piers Bizony
The politics of aerospace.  2007

Many Moons: the Myth and Magic, Fact and Fantasy of our Nearest Heavenly Body
Diana Brueton
1992

Men from Earth
Buzz Aldrin
From one of the astronauts who went there. 1989

Moonlore: Myths and Folklore from Around the World
Gwydion O’Hara
1997

Moon Shot: the Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon
Alan B. Shepard
Another astronaut scoops. 1994

Of a Fire on the Moon
Norman Mailer
1970

The Once and Future Moon
Paul D. Spudis
A geologist explains what we have learned about the moon, and explains why he thinks we should go back to increase our knowledge.  1998

Patrick Moore On the Moon
Patrick Moore
2006

Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age
Matthew Brzezinski
2008 

Rocket Man: Astronaut Pete Conrad’s Incredible Ride to the Moon and Beyond
Nancy Conrad
Biography.  2005

The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York
Matthew Goodman
I haven’t read this book, but I’m thinking with a title like that I’m going to have to.  2008

Welcome to the Moon!: 12 Lunar Expeditions for Small Telescopes
Robert Bruce Kelsey
1997

What if the Moon Didn’t Exist
Neil F. Comin
Now there’s an interesting question.  1995

Computer retraining

As I mentioned in my previous post, of all of the deaths that have occurred recently, the death of my hard drive hit me the hardest. It was also the most unexpected. Talk about untimely. I only bought this laptop about seven months ago. Used though. But only slightly.

Thanks to my foresight in having married an alpha geek, I had a new (and more spacious) hard drive installed within days. But now I’m required to help my computer relearn the things it used to know. Kind of like recovering from a brain injury.

“This is a bookmark,” I tell it. “You use it to take me to a web page, so I don’t have to type in the URL every time.”

“This e-mail address I’m putting in your address book is one you used to know. It’s my best friend’s. You used it all the time; I can’t believe you forgot even her.”

“This program is called Microsoft Word. We’ll be doing a lot of therapy using Word. It’s what you need the most for my writing. Oh good, now that you’ve relearned that, I see you’re able to pull up the memory of my novel from the flash drive.”

A writer friend, upon hearing the news about my hard drive, said in an almost-stricken way “Please tell me you have your novel saved somewhere.” It’s nice when people understand.

Actually, I’d done an exemplary job of backing up my writing, so I lost almost nothing. Photos of my children, however…not as much. Bad mommy. Guilty mommy. I’m afraid some of the most important memories have been lost to permanent amnesia. I did have a lot of the pics saved, just not the same percentage I managed with my writing.

Then there were all of the cool quotations I had collected over the past few years. Ah well, time to get out of the old ruts and make some new ones anyway. And maybe time to develop better habits about backing up everything, not only my writing.

Oh why not? Everyone else is talking about it.

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Iran, Twitter.  Oh, uh, hi – trying to get hits on my blog. Or would anyone like to take a break from all of those topics and read about my hard drive catastrophe? It’s compelling, but maybe only to me.

Oh, okay, I’ll spare everyone the self-indulgent hard-drive whine. For now. Meanwhile I’ll self-indulgently get on the Celebrity Death Train with everybody else.

Sometimes I wonder why so many people feel compelled to talk about celebrity deaths, even those who hate themselves for doing it. Witness the friend who immediately sent out emails to a chunk of her address book to say she couldn’t understand why her cousin always had to call her immediately to share the news of tragedies, “such as the deaths today of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.” (Have you heard?)

This particular email moved me beyond the why into the how. I find it interesting observing how we note the passing of celebrities. My teenage daughter told me about Michael Jackson. She got the news in a text from a friend. Having never sent a text message in my life, relying instead on the old-fashioned internet, I’d be lagging minutes behind on my newsfeeds if not for having a teen in the house.

My 11-year-old knew of Michael Jackson through the Weird Al connection. He only started watching MJ videos on YouTube after having seen the Weird Al parodies first. “They’re even funnier once you’ve seen the originals,” he observes.

My brother wins the prize for succinctness: “Bad week to be a celebrity.”

My friends and I stoit around among a handful of variations on the celebrity death discussion. 1.How much the Thriller video rocked our worlds when we were young, and how our kids missed out on the Jackson we knew before creepdom took hold. 2. How Michael Jackson stole the spotlight from Farrah Fawcett, who had put the fire in a generation of girls to achieve fabulous hair and kick butt. 3. The fact that we know for sure now not depend on Ed McMahon to fund a very early retirement. 4. How we should really be talking about serious issues such as the election in Iran and how journalism is forever changed. 5. Which seems to lead back to how each of us got the news about the recent celebrity deaths.

Elusive Finish Line

I’ve been working on the first draft of my first novel for a year and five months. For last five months I’ve claimed to be in the home stretch, a place that has proved to have great elasticity indeed. My finish line keeps moving.  I’ve added three chapters that somehow eluded my beginning outline, so how was I supposed to know I was going to have to write them? Then there’s the ever-present problem of finding time to do the writing. I considered telling my kids they couldn’t have birthdays this year because I had a book to finish, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Likewise I never quite get to the point of saying to my boss “Sorry, I’m on a roll with my writing. My paying job will have to wait.”

It’s getting embarrassing, as people ask me how the novel is going and I keep answering “Almost done with the first draft.”  I hope it doesn’t go on my tombstone: “She almost finished the first draft.” I started telling people I was writing a novel because I thought if others knew about my project, I’d have to finish it. It would help me to take myself seriously.

At first I spoke with enthusiasm, even when I encountered the skeptical look I knew meant everyone’s writing a novel. I spoke with confidence because I knew I’d be the person who actually finished the task. When queried, I’d report “Got the outline done.” Or “Wrote another chapter last week.” And it sounded even to me as if I were progressing toward something, even if I was getting there at a strolling pace. Now I’m starting to feel like Moses, with the promise of a new land shifting ever onward into the future and a whole nation asking “Are we there yet?” Or like a bad credit risk. I find myself tempted to avoid those acquaintances who are most likely to ask about the status of my novel because it feels too much like “Do you have that $20 you owe me yet?”

I know I’ve done this to myself.  It’s only because I set myself up for it that I have to feel so sheepish now when I answer. I suppose there’s only one solution, and that’s to finish the damn book. Which I guess means my plan is working.  I told everyone I was going to do it. Now I have to keep my word.

Book Thoughts: Payback by Margaret Atwood

I knew that, in addition to her mind-blowing fiction, Margaret Atwood also writes some pretty decent poetry.  And now I come across her non-fiction book, Payback (Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.)

The book is as thought-provoking as I assumed anything by Atwood would be. (Okay, that sounds a little too  much like “How much wood would a woodchuck…) The book has nothing to do with managing your finances and everything  to do with examining the meanings and origins of the concept of debt.  What do we owe each other and why do we think we owe it? 

Of particular interest to fiction writers will be chapter three: Debt as Plot, which made me think that there aren’t even four basic plots. Perhaps there’s only one, and it is debt. Who owes what to whom, how did they get into that debt and how are they going to get out of it? She begins the chapter by saying “Without memory there is no debt. Put another way: without story there is no debt.”

She goes on to examine the story of debt in various works of literature, her rather obvious starting point being Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Some whopper of a debt there. She also discusses A Christmas Carol, Vanity Fair and, a less obvious choice, Wuthering Heights. Think that last title is about romance and affairs of the heart? Well, Atwood would have us know that the heart keeps a balance sheet.  Then too, Heathcliff uses financial debt to control those around him. 

After reading Payback I find myself examining many of my assumptions about life and human relationships. I also find myself reading fiction with a new eye. Want to  unravel the plot? Follow the debt.

Fish Trees

It’s spring and the fish trees are in bloom. Other people call them Bradford pear trees, I now know, after asking a friend who is versed in horticultural matters. You can’t help noticing them, of course. Beautiful white flowers, planted everywhere, and a distinctive fishy smell to the blooms. Without knowing the formal name, I had to call them something, so I’ve always referred to them as fish trees. My kids picked up on that, and fish trees they will always be in our family discussions.

We also use sprinkle cheese in our house.  My daughter coined this term for the grated parmesan stuff in a can. Another family I know calls the same food feet cheese, because the mother thinks it smells bad.

I’ve always been fascinated by those apocryphal stories of twins who invent their own secret languages. I know there’s been debate about whether this has ever really happened, and if so, to what extent.  My personal experience tells me that wherever two or more people are gathered together for any length of extended contact, at least a few privately used words and phrases will spring into being. As my son once pithily observed, “Every word is a made-up word.”

Amazing and flexible thing, language. It can be so personalized and so universalized at the same time. I started thinking about this because I noticed the first fish tree blooms the same day I read that the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English will be published this year. This dictionary, according to the publishers, “seeks to document the varieties of English that are not found everywhere in the United States–those words, pronunciations, and phrases that vary from one region to another, that we learn at home rather than at school, or that are part of our oral rather than our written culture.”  

Big news for language geeks. I can’t wait to lose a few hours over it at the library.

Book List: Coffee and Tea

While we’re trying to get used to the clock change getting us up an hour earlier in the morning, this might be a good time to indulge in some caffeinated reading.  To that purpose, a list of books about coffee and or tea, or set in coffee/tea shops:

Poetry:

The Art of Making Tea: an Album of Recipes, Portraits, and Other Rituals
Elizabeth Jones Hanley

Teahouse of the Almighty: Poems
Patricia Smith 

Graphic Novel:

The Haunted Tea-Cosy: a Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas
Edward Gorey (Note: I love this book, and Edward Gorey in general. If you have a dark sense of humor and you celebrate Christmas, you should remember this book come December.)

Mysteries:

Black Coffee: A Hercule Poirot Novel
Agatha Christie

Coffee, Tea or Murder: A Murder She Wrote Mystery
Donald Bain

Coffee to Die For: A Professor Teodora Morelli Mystery
Linda French

Decaffeinated Corpse
Cleo Coyle

Espresso Shot
Cleo Coyle

French Pressed
Cleo Coyle

Irish Coffee
Ralph McInerny

Latte Trouble
Cleo Coyle

One Coffee With
Margaret Maron  (note: I didn’t leave words out of the title)

Tea Shop Mystery Series
Laura Childs

Other Fiction:

Coffee and Kung Fu
Karen Brichoux

Coffee in the Morning
Roz Denny

Coffee Rings: Three Women, One Tragic Event
Yvonne Lehman

The Coffee Trader: A Novel
David Liss

Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty
Jody Elizabeth Gehrmen

Darjeeling
Barti Kirchner

Fresh-Brewed Love: Four Novellas Share a Cup of Kindness With a Dollop of Romance
Various

High Tea
Sandra Harper

Stupid and Contagious
Caprice Crane

The Teahouse on Mulberry Street
Sharon Owens

The Teahouse Fire
Ellis Avery

The Various Flavors of Coffee
Anthony Capella 

Non-Fiction:

The Art of Tea-Leaf Reading
Jan Struthers

Cappuccino/Espresso: The Book of Beverages
Christie Katon

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Coffee and Tea
Travis Arndorfer

Confessions of a Coffee Bean: The Complete Guide to Coffee Cuisine
Marie Nadine Antol

Eat Tea: A New Approach to Flavoring Contemporary and Traditional Dishes
Joann Pruess

The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant That Took Over the World
Alan MacFarlane

God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee
Micheale Weissman

The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living With a Grande Passion
Leonard I. Sweet

The Green Tea Book: The Science-Backed “Miracle Cure”
Lester A. Mitscher

Green Tea: 50 Hot Drinks, Cool Quenchers, and Sweet and Savory Treats
Mary Lou Heiss

The Harney and Sons Guide to Tea
Michael Harney

Healing Herbal Teas: A Complete Guide to Making Delicious, Healthful Beverages
Brigitte Mars

A History of the World in Six Glasses
Tom Standage

Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival
Kenneth Davids

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
Michael Gill

Start and Run a Coffee Bar
Thomas Matzen

The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide
Mary Lou Heiss

Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, From Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee
Bee Wilson

Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire
Roy Moxham

The Tea Ceremony
Sen-O Tenaka

Tea Cup Reading: A Quick and Easy Guide to Tasseography
Sasha Fenton

Tea Cup Tales: The Art of Reading Tea Leaves
Margaret McWhorter

Tea: The Drink That Changed the World
Laura C. Martin

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace – One School at a Time
Greg Mortenson

Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
Mark Pendergrast

**

Drink in the words and enjoy! 

 

 

 

Peanut Butter Again

I know the major brands of jarred peanut butter are not on the recall list. I still have this “thing” about buying them, rational or not. I really wanted peanut butter again, though.  My solution for now is to buy Eastwind Peanut Butter. It’s produced and processed organically and not too far down the road from me. 

Ideally, this type of food would make up the bulk of my grocery purchases.  In the real world, I have house payments and braces to buy for one of my kids.  It’s a dilemma.  I want to buy local/organic and pay workers what they’re worth.  What I can afford is often something else.  It’s not because I’d have to give up the trip to the Bahamas.  I already don’t have that; I’ve taken one vacation in the last five years. 

I do what I can. In the summer we have a small garden. At the store, I buy a few expensive grocery items for the health and environmental factors and most of the rest consists of store brands for the financial factor. I’m guessing a lot of people do the same.  It depends on which items are priority.  Peanut butter had been a store brand thing. Now I’ve added it in the column with the local bgh-free milk and the free range eggs.  

It does feel good to know my family and I are eating healthier foods. So long as I can keep us out from under the bridge, I’ll try be grateful for the availability and not complain too much about the cost.

The Meaning of Life – Updated

Update:  Tracfone has responded to my e-mail, and I have to give them credit for quick answering. The issue, as they explain it, is two different double minutes plans, one for life and one for one year.  They believe I purchased the one year double minutes plan and I was sure I purchased double minutes for life (since I didn’t even know the other was an option.) Unfortunately I can’t find any documentation from when I bought it.  I’m pretty sure it was in an e-mail, which I lost a lot of upon switching computers. I do remember my husband and I both purchased double minutes at the same time and having much discussion beforehand about whether to spend the money, and clearly remember we believed we were purchasing double minutes for life.  It’s completely out of character for me to have spent so much money only for one year. I also remember my husband dropping his phone in a lake and then being informed his double minutes were only for the life of the original phone (my understanding) and not the life of him having *a* phone from them. Of course, me saying “I seem to remember…” is a far cry from having saved the receipt.  So if there’s a lesson in this, it’s the importance of saving receipts. 

Having looked at other cell phone plans, Tracfone is still the best option for me. I don’t use my phone that often.  I have it in case the school needs to reach me if one of my children is ill, or if my car breaks down.  Being able to purchase the minutes in advance and not worry about a monthly bill works for me.  I think I’ll pass on the double minutes card for now, though. Apparently, one of us – it could be either – has a history of doing that part wrong.

**

 

I discovered the meaning of life today.  It is one year.  Tracfone (you know, the cell phone company) explained it to me via e-mail.  When I bought double minutes for life, that was good for one year. If I want double minutes again this year I’m supposed to buy a second double minutes airtime card, for my second life presumedly. I don’t know if I’m required to create an avatar to use it.

I’m a bit stubborn about holding onto my first life, however, so I haven’t let the matter drop.  Here is the text of my response to their response:

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I thought that double minutes for life would mean the life of the phone, at least. If I had realized “life” was so fleeting, I would have adopted a Carpe Diem attitude and spent the money elsewhere. Please advise me where life is defined as one year in your fine print. 

I look forward to hearing back from you about a resolution of this issue within this lifetime.  In this case, lifetime means the next week.

Regards,

Harumph!