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Dec 17, 2009

Richard rated it:

This would have been a superb book but for Wolfe's puzzling decision to libel astronaut Gus Grissom. Sadly, between the book and its movie adaptation, Wolfe's distortions are probably all that most people know about Grissom (assuming of course that they remember any astronaut other than Neil Armstrong in the first place).

Grissom was one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, and the second to go into space. After his capsule splashed down, its hatch blew before the recovery helico More...

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Sep 01, 2008

Traci rated it:

9.1.08 I wish I could give half stars because then I would give this book four and half. I absolutely loved it, the half star deduction from five is only because I had a really hard time finishing the last 40 pages or so. They seemed to drag a little. Otherwise, this was a fantastic book. As I mentioned before, I really thought it would be dry (perhaps that was my issue with those stubborn last pages) but it wasn't. Tom Wolfe's narrative was funny and straightforward and I breezed through comple More...

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Jun 22, 2007

John rated it:

Easily one of the best books I've read this year, and one of those books I kick myself for having put off for so long. It possesses the very best of Wolfe; Kesey-like humor, Heller-like shrewdness and Steinbeck-like depth. Unlike so many biographical or journalistic books, it managed to make me feel for these people as well as inform me about them. He grabs the possibiltiy of their heroism and absoluteness of their cultural importance like the two horns of a bull, and wrestles the creature down More...

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Sep 07, 2007

Graeme rated it:

This book genuinely gets the adrenaline pumping. There's a scene where Chuck Yeager takes an NF-104 up to 110,000 feet (about 10 miles into "space"), then looses control and goes into a spin, plummeting to 20,000 feet before regaining enough control to safely eject. Then the seat gets tangled in the parachute lines and spills corrosive fuel (why was there corrosive fuel in the chair?) on his face and hand. He fights through the intense pain of melting eyeball to free up the parachut More...

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Jul 05, 2011

Rscarff rated it:

Always been somewhat fascinated by space travel, so this may be a little more in my wheelhouse than for others. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anybody. Whether the subject is the genesis of NASA and the Mercury Program, the individual sub-orbital and orbital missions, or broader discussion of the space race with the Soviet Union, the writing moves at a breakneck pace and captivated me from open to close. There is some especially great stuff about the dangers faced by More...

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Jan 21, 2011

Shawn rated it:

When I was a kid (thanks to my attendance at several military-funded elementary schools), I had the opportunity to meet Alan Shepard. I got to try on John Glenn’s spacesuit. I knew who these guys were in the second grade, but I never really knew the full story behind America’s first forays into space until I read “The Right Stuff” several years ago.

Wolfe takes us through the inception and development of the United States Space program, and into the lives of the original Mercury Seve More...

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Oct 24, 2010

Patrick rated it:

This is a really good book. A great author with a really interesting subject. The book is about the Mercury Space Program, and does a great job of recounting the history of America's first manned space program. The story skews to the personal stories of the astronauts and major NASA personnel versus the technical side, but Wolfe is a good enough writer to merge the personal and technical and keep the story moving the entire time. Throughout the book the idea of "the right stuff" pe More...

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Dec 25, 2009

Mike rated it:

"The Right Stuff" is a fantastic account of the Mercury astronaut program, but it's also a window into American culture in the early 1960s.

Tom Wolfe's writing is second to none, and the story unfolds like a good novel (though it factually covers a fascinating part of American history). The space program wasn't just about flying into space -- it was about the United States competing with the Soviets, Americans rallying around a new breed of "Single Combat Warriors" More...

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Aug 02, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

Good GRIEF, somebody please remind me about this the next time I think I will read a Tom Wolfe book. I seem to read one about every 15 years and in between I forget what an unpleasant experience I find it. I cannot! Take! The exclamation points! I'm one of those people who, constitutionally, cannot ignore an exclamation point on the printed page, so reading this was like being shouted at for great lengths of time. As everyone in the free world already knows, this is Tom Wolfe's book about the Me More...

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May 25, 2009

Eric rated it:

Wolfe's story of the U.S. supersonic test flight and early space programs transports you back to a bygone American era when pilots were heroes, scientific advance seemed endless, and the quest for higher, faster, first ruled the news. To Wolfe's credit, he paints real portraits of these guys&mdashthey're drunks, adulterers, bad fathers, arrogant pricks—but ultimately, he loves them. They have it! They have the right stuff. Wolfe is a powerful writer. Reading about a test flight gone wrong as the More...

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Aug 31, 2010

Aeli rated it:

This book is just great!! This is a must read for football fans. Why? Because we have transferred that idea of the "right stuff" from our fighter pilots/astronauts to our sports heroes...particularly football. The idea of the man who is above other men, because of his innate ability to continually face danger (granted you don't normally die in sports) and by his own innate devices return unscathed ("the right stuff") is still alive in our society...we have just transferred More...

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Oct 14, 2010

Alain rated it:

While I am not a fan of Wolfe's writing style (wasn't that impressed with 'Bonfire of the Vanities' either) I do acknowledge that he is a keen observer and makes some astute observations about the space program and the country's relationship with it in the early days.

I have seen the movie many times - and enjoy it, probably more than the book - but reading the book I found that an important part of the narrative had been grossly underplayed in the movie. In the movie, it's implied but More...

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Dec 19, 2009

Tom rated it:

This is a very good book about the space race from 1957 to about 1964. It seems everyone knows who the first men on the moon were, but who were the first seven astronauts designated to go into space? Thomas Wolfe does a great job telling the courageous stories of those astronauts, along with the story of Chuck Yeager, who basically started it all. Wolfe does a great job telling how these men didn't panic in a tough situation, even though sometimes the situation may have called for a panic. I als More...

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Mar 02, 2009

Haley rated it:

I learned a lot about the Space Race and about the early NASA program in this book. I didn't really know I was that interested in the topic until I read the book. Might be hard to get through for some people though....

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Oct 27, 2009

Stephen rated it:

Having just about got over I Am Charlotte Simmons, I wanted to remind myself why Tom Wolfe was once considered an important writer. And my faith was restored. While his style is still a little too jarring with its vernacular stylings, here it is put to good use. Wolfe does a brilliant job of conveying the culture of elite military pilots. Having established the fighter-jock spirit he shows how it was undermined in the early days of the space programme, and then how it was gradually restored so More...

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Feb 24, 2009

Cait rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. It describes the birth and early evolution of the manned space program in the US (the Mercury series of flights), and the conflict and competition between the early NASA and the air force. It adopts an irreverent and sometimes pointed – although always affectionate - tone, examining the early astronauts in their roles as “heroes” in the fight against the communist machine, but also as fundamentally flawed human beings showered with public adulation and the potential f More...

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Jul 20, 2009

Stephen rated it:

Has it really been 40 years since humans first walked on the moon? Four decades. Will it ever happen again? What courage.

Yet, before there was Apollo 11, before there were even the Gemini space missions, there were the original Mercury seven astronauts: Shepard, Grissom, Glenn, Carpenter, Cooper, Schirra, Slayton. We all knew their names; knew what they looked like in their shiny, silver space suits; knew they had true grit.

Like every red-bloodied boy growing up in t More...

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Sep 20, 2008

Renee rated it:

I didn't like this book. Picked it up because it's the "One Book, One Chicago" pick. I really disliked the style of writing. He is writing non-fiction but does so in this joking, conversational style with works against the topic of men who choose to be test pilots and risk their lives on a daily basis. I kept reading because I wanted to see how it turned out and it wasn't worth it!

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Jan 18, 2010

J.C. rated it:

It has been a long time since I read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and I really don't remember Wolfe's style. I remember liking Acid Test (mainly because I was into the 60's west coast scene) and remember liking the movie version of The Right Stuff to warrant me spending $1.50 on the mass market at a book sale in College. Unfortunately I didn't care enough to go out and start reading it that day. As a result, I had been sitting with this book on random shelves for over ten years now and I fig More...

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Jan 08, 2008

Angela rated it:

This is true history in an action-packed, exciting novel form. I learned so much about aviation history - heck - U.S. history, plus Tom Wolfe had a lot of insight into the daredevil mindset. I loved the movie, too, but the book was so much more complex... And the "natural born stick-and-rudder man" comes through in the book and not the movie.

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Apr 19, 2009

Dave rated it:

My friend Ty is a big fan of both the movie and the book. When I happened to mention that I hadn't seen or read either, he was aghast. I enjoyed the film quite a bit, and so he insisted I read the book. The stories themselves and the people involved are quite interesting, and make for compelling reading. Wolfe's style is a bit grating at times - he picks a few themes and then mentions them and points them out OVER and OVER ad nauseum, as if the reader might not be able to connect the dots withou More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Elisabeth rated it:

It's non-fiction, but it doesn't read like it. Gripping, exciting, a fascinating insight into the courage - or foolishness - of people on the cutting edge of science and technology. I picked this up because I was writing a character who was a test pilot, and this seemed like a good resource. I got so much more than that. Tom Wolfe creates his world so well, I really felt like I was there at the beginning of the space program, feeling the national fear and excitement and awe. I lived in Houston a More...

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Apr 21, 2009

Steven rated it:

Tom Wolfe blazed an original trail, writing news as fiction. That and his powerful, poetic voice make this book worth reading. He plays with rhythm like a jazz musician. But the RIGHT STUFF tells a great story, nicely mixing adventure with research.

Being from Houston, I particularly liked the various anecdotal stories about the Houston of the 1960s--including the Astronaut parade ending at the old Sam Houston Coliseum (now home to Bar Houston and etc.). Best of all was the disc More...

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Dec 08, 2010

Vivien rated it:

It pains me to give any Wolfe book less than a 3, but I can't in good conscience give a book I couldn't even finish more than a 2. The parts I read were a 3, I swear!

This started out aMAZingly - archly observing the proud little world Airforce pilots live in where you either have the right stuff or don't, with wives who grow used to the fact that you may die doing something stupid like chasing another plane in practice when you shouldn't have been (which only goes towards proving you More...

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Aug 03, 2009

Handel rated it:

An interesting and fascinating look at the dawn of the space age, but more importantly, the bonds between the original pilots. Wolfe explores what was so special about the men, why they did what they did, and what was their role in the larger American narrative.

The book is best summed up by this telling quote: " No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line More...

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Oct 30, 2011

Rick rated it:

Many confuse the book with the movie.

I like both, but regard the movie as a fictionalized, serio-comic version of the book, I enjoy watching it, and

The book is extremely well-researched, and much more even-handed than the movie. You won't find the comic press core in the pages, and the handling of Gus Grissom is completely different both in extent and tone.

Also, I don't think the book idolizes Chuck Yeager quite as much. Over the years I've personally gone from i More...

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May 07, 2009

Dale rated it:

I think I first became aware of Tom Wolfe when Bonfire of the Vanities became a runaway hit and they started talking about making it a movie, and people spoke of Wolfe as a man who would write one book per decade (which sounds like a pretty sweet gig) and each book would really encapsulate the decade, as Bonfire of the Vanities did for the 80's. I never read Bonfire, but then again, I don't really find the subject matter that compelling. (I mean, I love 80's pop culture, but not so much the fi More...

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Dec 10, 2011

Marzie rated it:

Read this many years ago and still consider it one of those all-time great reads. If you were coming of age at the time of the "original. Astronauts" then this is a must read for every Boomer!

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Mar 20, 2010

Nathalie rated it:

Picked this one out of David's old books after a fishing trip to the local library to retrieve HEART OF DARKNESS failed. Never mind the irony there. It's one of those I've always wanted to read and wish I had much sooner.

For some reason, probably the movie version, I mistakenly thought this book focused more on the test flight pilots - Chuck Yeager and all the other Billie Badasses - boring to me. I had no idea its main focus was really NASA's Mercury Program which has been a h More...

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Dec 01, 2009

Frank rated it:

Awesome. Two quibbles: Wolfe calls Wright-Patterson AFB "Wright-Pat" throughout. It's Wright-Patt. (Half my family works there.) Gus Grissom gets a really hard time here. He was later exonerated for the capsule sinking. As proven by the other astronauts, he would have had a bruise on his arm if he'd have manually opened the hatch. Grissom didn't have the bruise and stuck to his story that the hatch blew on its own, thus letting in the water that sunk the capsule and almost caused him t More...

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