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The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe

4.23 · Rating details · 44,887 ratings · 1,607 reviews

Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero."

Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction novel that Truman Capote had pioneered with In Cold Blood. As Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective, dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier. Test pilots, we discover, are people who live fast lives with dangerous machines, not all of them airborne. Chuck Yeager was certainly among the fastest, and his determination to push through Mach 1--a feat that some had predicted would cause the destruction of any aircraft--makes him the book's guiding spirit.

Yet soon the focus shifts to the seven initial astronauts. Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and literary merits are secure. Certainly The Right Stuff is the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned space program. --Patrick O'Kelley

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Kindle Edition, 369 pages

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Jul 31, 2007 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: space buffs, aviation buffs, cold war era buffs, dudes of any gender

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 helicopter arrived 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 helicopter arrived and the spacecraft sank, marring a near-flawless mission. No one was able to determine the cause of the incident (even after the capsule was recovered from the ocean floor thirty years later) but the universal consensus among NASA's engineers and astronauts was that mechanical failure couldn't be ruled out, and that Grissom deserved the benefit of the doubt.

For some reason, Wolfe decided that Grissom, despite having been a combat veteran and despite the fact that the most dangerous stages of the mission (launch and re-entry) were behind him, had panicked and blown the hatch himself. He also insinuates that the souvenirs Grissom had brought along (a few rolls of coins and some keychain-sized models of the capsule) had somehow contributed to Grissom's nearly drowning (in fact air had been escaping from a valve -- that he admitted he had forgotten to close -- reducing his buoyancy). Wolfe cynically adds that NASA covered up Grissom's blunders in the interest of protecting its public image.

In reality, there's no evidence for Wolfe's position. Even the curmudgeonly Flight Director Chris Kraft, whose autobiography shows no reluctance to tear into other astronauts, has steadfastly maintained that Grissom wasn't at fault. The clearest evidence of Grissom's blamelessness is the fact that he was chosen to command the first Gemini mission and the first manned Apollo mission. If NASA's administration had believed that Grissom was incompetent, there would have been no need for them to make any embarrassing public admissions; they could have asked him to resign "for personal reasons," or they could have kept him on salary while simply not assigning him to any new missions.

A lesser flaw with the book is that Wolfe presents his opinions as facts, regarding the meaning of "the right stuff," and the meaning of the public's adoration of the Mercury Seven, but these flaws are easier to overlook. And having said all that, this is an otherwise compelling look at the early days of manned space exploration, at the glory days of Edwards Air Force Base, and at the test pilots who first broke the sound barrier and went on to fly rocket planes to the edge of space. ...more

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Feb 19, 2014 Glenn Sumi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemp-classics, non-fiction, favorites

Updated May 15, 2018: RIP, Tom Wolfe... reading this book was such an eye-opener. You were a true original. I'll never forget the pure pleasure I had reading this book, as well as the great satire that was, that is, Bonfire Of The Vanities.

***

Yee-hawwww!!! Tom Wolfe's 1979 book about the American space race is a high-octane non-fiction masterpiece.

Wolfe's maximalist style – full of exclamation marks!!! ... ellipses ... and repeated italicized phrases that take on the rhythm of great jazz – is pe ...more

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Jul 17, 2008 Kemper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rubbermaid-treasure, 2017-reread, non-fiction, famous-books, rocket-man

Treasure of the Rubbermaids 24: Rocket Men

The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.

If you, a 21st century person, ever sees one of the old Mercury space capsules in a museum you’ll probably be amazed at how small and primitive it see ...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Elizabeth K. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-new-reads

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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Mar 24, 2019 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-shelf, non-fiction, science

Back when I was a kid, I watched The Right Stuff. And while that really dates me, it also sparked my fascination with the OTHER side of the science fiction coin. You know, REALITY and the real men and women doing real science.

And even if I'm not fanatical about learning science, I've never stopped learning and I don't want to. Sure, I may be doing it only to give my own writing much more verve, but understanding reality has been an end in and of itself. :)

Of course, I can lay all that internal p ...more

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Apr 19, 2015 Jim Rossi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've probably read over a thousand books - I just earned my MA in History and am a writer who's headed to UC Berkeley in the fall - and The Right Stuff, along with the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, are in my top 10. Exhilarating, uncanny, and - unusual for Wolfe - concise. The man's range as a writer - going from drug-fueled hippie rebellion to death-defying test pilots with unquestioned loyalty to the state - remains virtually unprecedented. I'm re-examining Wolfe's body of work as I finish my f ...more

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Aug 27, 2019 Becky rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2019, abandoned, bad-shit-and-atrocities, yay-science, disappointing, ebook_kindle, non-fiction, reviewed, politicalish

Catch-up Review 2 of 4:

So this was a buddy read among the pantsless, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Unfortunately, for me, it was more of a failure to launch than a successful mission. (See what I did there?)

I WANTED to like this. I wanted to learn about the men who made this mission, the ones brave enough to leave the planet and try to land on the moon, the ones that clearly had cojones the size of beachballs (that's the "right stuff" - spoiler alert)... but I could not m ...more

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Feb 22, 2019 Matthew Quann rated it really liked it

Recommended to Matthew by: Glenn Sumi

Shelves: whip-smart, audiobooks, non-fiction

Tom Wolfe's big and beautiful nonfiction romp makes for an absolutely A+ audiobook listen.

While listening to Dennis Quaid's narration, I felt as if a gruff stranger had sat beside me at a bar, bought me a pint, and started in on some conspiratorial, you're-not-gonna-believe-it storytelling. There's definitely an air of the old guard letting you in on the secrets of their exalted reign, and it is a hell of a fun bit of storytelling. Wolfe somehow manages to make the writing seem conversational, ...more

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May 22, 2019 Optimist ♰King's Wench♰ rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, historical, audiobooks

Alright... well... how do I say this?

I didn't hate it but this is a case (for me) where the book did not live up to the movie. Sure there are many MANY more details but for sheer entertainment value?

All. Day. Baby.

I liked that Yeager played a larger role than he didn't even in the movie and that the book encompasses the Apollo astronauts briefly. There was also much more context given in relation to the geopolitical events of the day and how those impacted the space program. I also had NO IDEA t ...more

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Mar 19, 2017 Thomas Strömquist rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A quite good read, but not really what I would expect from Wolfe. The tone is very informal and the narrative almost unstructured conversational. This makes the first third a bit slow and drawn out as we're repeatedly hammered by the problem with the start of the Mercury program being that the pilot-cum-astronauts would not be required, or even able to, use their flying skills. The race with Russia was full on from the start and the feats being accomplished under their program, with little forew ...more

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May 19, 2014 Michael Burnam-Fink rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014, history

No better book has been written about flying or the space race. Tom Wolfe has what it takes, the bubbling enthusiasm and critical eye, to write properly about astronauts. The Right Stuff is about endurance, guts, reflexes, a cool head, and giant titanium testicles. It's about going up day after day in high performance jets that are trying their level best to kill you-and statistically will kill 23% of pilots in peacetime-and pushing them to the edge of the envelope and beyond. It's about sitting ...more

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Apr 19, 2019 AJ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, outer-freaking-space, non-fiction

I first read this book about 20 years ago when I was really obsessed with space and convinced that I would one day become an astronaut. The former of those two things has not changed, but I've become much more realistic about the almost zero chance of the latter. I wanted to re-read this book and see how I'd feel now that I'm a pilot and also now that I just have 20 years more life under my belt in general.

I recall having really loved this book, and I still really loved this book. It's easy to r I first read this book about 20 years ago when I was really obsessed with space and convinced that I would one day become an astronaut. The former of those two things has not changed, but I've become much more realistic about the almost zero chance of the latter. I wanted to re-read this book and see how I'd feel now that I'm a pilot and also now that I just have 20 years more life under my belt in general.

I recall having really loved this book, and I still really loved this book. It's easy to read, and it's fun to read. I had a hard time putting it down and got resentful of my hairdresser for being ready for me early when I hadn't finished reading a sentence yet. The story of the origins of the space program are compelling, I found myself rooting for all of the test pilots and astronauts in this story, and feeling suspense about events that happened so many years ago that the outcomes are common knowledge (at least for space nerds such as myself).

However (you all knew that word was coming), I know that any narrative interpretation of the early space program (this book is mostly about the Mercury project with emphasis on the first few flights, and some narrative on the X-1 and X-15/X-20 projects) is going to be colored with bias, incomplete information, and just plain old story telling. This is no exception. Other reviewers lambast Wolfe for his biased takes on some of the astronauts. I do not take this book to be gospel truth, but a literary interpretation of the events that happened. More importantly, this book is a literary interpretation of the inner workings of test pilots and the first astronauts, hence the title: The Right Stuff.

I have to say, I hate The Right Stuff attitude. The FAA has literally defined some hazardous attitudes (such things that can and probably will get you into a possibly life-threatening situation when you're behind the stick and rudder of an aircraft) and two of them are: "macho" and "invulnerability." Sound familiar? Not to mention the toxic masculinity that kept (and continues to keep) women away from aviation and the space program that also caused and continues to cause problems for men. (What does it say about you as a man if you can't make it to the top of that pyramid? Or even half way up? That can't be a fun way to view your worth as a human.)

I don't fault the book for being about The Right Stuff. It is what it is, I don't hate the book, I just hate the culture that idolizes and worships harmful stereotypes and attitudes. I don't even think that Wolfe idolizes and glorifies this Right Stuff attitude as much as he just spelled out the way things were, and that's just the way things were. I'm grateful that we're (slowly) moving away from such a flawed outlook toward the understanding that people are humans and we are what we are. ...more

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Jul 08, 2019 Delee marked it as to-read

Shelves: pantless-group-read, group-or-buddy-read, non-fiction, stopped-reading-but-will-try-again, so-dan-2-0-will-shut-up

How could I turn down an offer to Buddy-read The Right Stuff- with the Pant-less wonders....when they asked so nicely?

Ɗẳɳ 2.☊, Ron Swanson is my spirit animal (Jun 19, 2019 09:32AM)-

Well, what I'd like is to see you (Becky) and Licha team up on Delee, and convince her to read The Right Stuff.

I bet you could trick her into opening the door to her boat by using a trained raccoon to create some sorta commotion. Then when she steps over the threshold, grab her arm and twist it behind her back, whil ...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Josh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Way back in 1979, Tom Wolfe packaged together an exciting story about the initial fleeting moments of the space race, as well as a delightful sense of humor, within the two covers of a non-fiction book. But don’t let the narrative’s 33 year-old publishing fool you. The Right Stuff aged well, managing in this recent read to deliver relevant and insightful commentary about an intensely fascinating historical period amidst the Cold War. From Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of southern Cal Way back in 1979, Tom Wolfe packaged together an exciting story about the initial fleeting moments of the space race, as well as a delightful sense of humor, within the two covers of a non-fiction book. But don’t let the narrative’s 33 year-old publishing fool you. The Right Stuff aged well, managing in this recent read to deliver relevant and insightful commentary about an intensely fascinating historical period amidst the Cold War. From Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of southern California to the new space centers at Cape Canaveral and Houston, this story is packed full of colorful topics, including early spaceflights, astronaut rivalries and astronaut wives, the end of the golden age of flight, and the author’s chosen super-pilot, Chuck Yeager.

Much of the work’s magic comes from the wondrous way in which Wolfe blended teaching and entertaining. He delved into the concept of the “righteous stuff,” perhaps understood to be cool bravery, which the author suggested separated the best pilots from everyone else. He studied the subculture among these men and the mass hysteria, driven by fears of Soviet Communist space supremacy, which surrounded these original seven astronauts. It’s as much an examination of American culture as a history book. But throughout, the pace never slows, the read never grows dull, and the text’s amusing wit and charm never fails.

Among other fun techniques, Wolfe employed a unique stylistic repetition of his favorite words and key phrases. Page after page sees reference to the “single combat warrior,” “flying and drinking and drinking and driving,” “our rockets always blow up,” “wipe away a tear,” “the mighty [Soviet] Integral,” move “up the ziggurat,” “the little Indians,” “West Virginia drawl,” and of course “the right stuff.” This curious practice bolstered his commentary while often acting the part of a fun delivery device for humor and amusement in a non-fiction book.

For the first time in memory, I don’t have a single negative comment or complaint to make about a book. Though writing literary criticism may be as important as delving out acclaim, this read left me feeling a rare sense of awe for the author. As a history fan, I’ve never encountered a non-fiction work as much fun as this and can’t find the right stuff to do it justice now. Additionally, if you haven’t seen it, there is a great movie made in the early 1980s, bearing the same name and closely adapted from this incredible book. ...more

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Oct 16, 2014 Sara rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: movies-i-have-seen, non-fiction, biography

The Very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff, that Righteous, Righteous stuff, the Indefinable, Unutterable, Integral Stuff.

Test pilots have The Right Stuff. Astronauts have The Right Stuff. Thus Tom Wolfe pulls us into Chuck Yeager's world in Muroc in the 1940's when the sound barrier is about to be broken and segues us into the original Seven - the chosen ones with the righteous, righteous stuff, the first men into space. (Never mind a monkey's gonna make the first flight! Never mind our rockets al ...more

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Feb 20, 2019 Benjamin Marcher rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: guy-stuff

Something about Tom Wolfe's prose (rest his soul) is so unfriendly yet so inviting, so dry yet so wry, so pedantic yet so accessible. It's indescribable. It'd be easier to say that Tom simply had The Right Stuff.

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Jan 08, 2014 Mitch Albom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: love

I still defy anyone to read the first chapter, as Wolfe follows the path of a plane crash through the trees, and not be dazzled by his style.

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Jan 03, 2017 Thom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Poetic, historical, with a wry humor. A few too many exclamation points!

I really enjoyed this overview of the early days of the space race - all of the Mercury program, plus some of what led up to it and also what came after. Chuck Yeager plays a major part. The writing style is breezy and conversational, while somehow touching on most of the facts. I also enjoyed the pilot's humor.

Sometimes the prose went past poetic and into repetitious. While I don't always understand why the NASA administrat ...more

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Oct 07, 2010 Alain DeWitt rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

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 not very f ...more

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Jun 22, 2007 John Wiswell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Literary readers, fans of non-fiction and biography, and readers who are jaded towards heroism

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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Aug 29, 2007 Graeme Hinde rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 parachute and land sa ...more

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Aug 05, 2019 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history-and-biography, 5-star-reads, library, late-20th-century

This is one of the few movies I've seen, but so long ago I barely remember it. What I did remember was Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier. I grew up in Southern California and remember those frequent sonic booms. Part of this story is of the men who flew those flights. It is also the story of the first seven astronauts. It is just about as opposite as you can get of my recent read, Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond.

Somewhere recently I read "Tom ...more

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Mar 31, 2020 Book Concierge rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, biography, strong-women, audio, library, nonfiction, history, concierge, space

Digital audiobook performed by Dennis Quaid

In 1957 a Russian rocket launched an unmanned satellite – Sputnik – into space. Clearly this was an escalation of the Cold War and the US would not stand still for it. No. We were going to put a man into space by 1960. But how? And who?

This is the story of the first seven Mercury Astronauts and how they came to be chosen – evaluated to ensure they had The Right Stuff to succeed in this vital mission.

I remember so clearly that day in school as a child w ...more

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Sep 09, 2013 Susan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, space-exploration, re-read, technology

I loved this book. I've read it at least twice, and will probably read it again someday. Wolfe takes us into the lives of the Mercury 7 astronauts before they were selected and during their training. It's been years even since my re-read, but scenes still pop into my mind while I'm writing this. To me, that makes it a really special book.

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Apr 28, 2018 Mark rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

I have always been a gig fan of the film version of The Right Stuff but never got around to reading the source material, which is surprising since I really like Tom Wolfe. This is stellar non-fiction. It is funny and incredibly informative. If you never got around to it, like me, give it a spin.

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Jul 22, 2013 Mike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: aviation, cold-war

The Right Stuff falls in the troublesome category of history books written by journalists. On the one hand, the book is wonderful to read, enlightening, insightful, and inspiring. On the other hand, there’s not a single footnote in the book, his bibliography consists of a single-digit number of works, and the author likes to make sweeping general statements that cannot possibly be backed up in any real way. But Tom Wolfe didn’t write The Right Stuff to be correct about all the historical details The Right Stuff falls in the troublesome category of history books written by journalists. On the one hand, the book is wonderful to read, enlightening, insightful, and inspiring. On the other hand, there’s not a single footnote in the book, his bibliography consists of a single-digit number of works, and the author likes to make sweeping general statements that cannot possibly be backed up in any real way. But Tom Wolfe didn’t write The Right Stuff to be correct about all the historical details, he wrote it to entertain and inspire, telling a marvelous tale of human ingenuity and courage while demonstrating how us normal folk respond to the presence of those extraordinary few who change history. In this sense, the book is an amalgamation of the top-down “great man” view of history and the bottom-up “everyday man” view, showing how, even in the moment, society exalts certain world-changing men and places them on a gigantic pedestal, for better or worse.

Wolfe’s work traces the story of NASA’s Mercury Program, that launched the first men in space. Throughout the work, Wolfe creates an extended analogy between these men and the warriors of ancient times who engaged in single combat. He argues that such courageous men of old received veneration, glory, and honor because of their choice to engage in single combat on behalf of an entire people — and such veneration was given to them before the actual combat took place. In the same way, the Mercury astronauts were exalted to a similar place in society, viewed as going into a similar form of “combat,” symbolic if not actual, against the Soviet Union in the race for control of space. The accuracy of this analogy is up for debate, but it is interesting nonetheless, and does help give the story extra weight. Thus the book is simultaneously able to portray the astronauts as real, relatable men while also painting them as larger than life examples of nobility and courage.

Perhaps ironically, the books emphasizes the disconnect between these pilots and the engineers behind the Mercury project. These scientists undoubtedly deserve much of the credit for the incredible achievements of the project, yet even a fraction of the social veneration given to the astronauts was denied to the engineers who actually designed and built these amazing machines. Wolfe traces not only the irony in this truth, but the growing antagonism between the pilots, who were used to flying their own high-performance aircraft, and the engineers, who considered the astronauts as little more than passive passengers. The insulting fact that a monkey would make the first Mercury flight became a running gag among other test pilots, but led to developments that changed the role of astronauts within NASA and set precedents for the future.

The fact that these astronauts were drawn from Air Force test pilots is perhaps the most intriguing running theme of the book. Wolfe bookends his story with tales of test flights by pilots such as the legendary Chuck Yeager, a man who embodied “The Right Stuff,” yet refused to join the Mercury project. Wolfe also shows that many of NASA’s achievements seem pale in comparison to the similar projects the Air Force was doing at the time. In a subtle way, the book tells the story of how space exploration was wrestled from the hands of the Air Force and placed in the hands of a civilian agency, for better or for worse.

Yet both institutions were driven by the search for The Right Stuff, that heady mix of courage, bravery, and daring to push mankind to his limits and beyond. In that sense, this book is inspirational and electrifying. Despite the fact that Wolfe’s bibliography entries can be counted on one hand, and there’s not a single footnote, and many of the claims he makes seem ridiculously over-generalized, this is still a fantastic work. The reader must remember, the purpose of this work is not necessarily to tell the complete factually accurate account of the origins of the space program. Rather, it is to tell the incredible tale of courageous men who risked their lives to achieve what was once thought impossible, using unstoppable willpower to challenge the unknown. The book attempts to ilicit that same veneration that ancient peoples had for their conquering warriors, and to inspire us through fantastical tales of achievement. It’s not a history book, its a motivational story of the triumph of human ingenuity both technological and emotional. In that role, it succeeds brilliantly. ...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Lennie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shepard, Cooper, Glenn, Grissom, Carpenter, Schirra, and Slayton…these were the men chosen by NASA to be astronauts for Project Mercury, a program that put men into space for suborbital and orbital flights. They were called the “original seven” and they were considered the greatest pilots and the bravest men in America because they were pilots on the most daring flights in American history. When they accomplished their missions they became national heroes because they risked their lives for thei ...more

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Jun 26, 2018 Jason Allison rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I grew up watching the movie on local television countless times, but had never read the book. Well now I have, and I am glad. I loved it. A glimpse of an America lost to time.

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Jul 02, 2020 Noriko rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Very detailed retelling of the first seven American astronauts who trailblazed an uncharted path to space amid the fierce, cut-throat space race against the former Soviet Union.

I enjoyed this epic tale overall; it's fascinating, captivating, and illuminating with regards to bringing some background contexts of the space to the fore as well as introducing the first seven daring American test pilots who volunteered for the Mercury Project.

The underlying theme of "The Right Stuff" and the conflic ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Suzanne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, book-club-2017, 2017-survey-says-annual-challenge

There are few modern writers as talented as Tom Wolfe, who manages to create his own style, in addition to a depth of thought and characters, while writing in a vernacular understandable to his readers. In fact, after reading The Right Stuff, I decided that Mr. Wolfe has earned the spot of my favorite living author.

The novel opens where navy pilots push the science of flight beyond the envelope, just prior to the advent of the US Space Program. These daredevils were men of talent, grit and wit ...more

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About Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe

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Wolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.

Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into ...more

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As we wrap up our 2018 Reading Challenge, we decided to ask our Goodreads coworkers a simple yet tough question: What were the...

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Quotes from The Right Stuff

“In time, the Navy would compile statistics showing that for a career Navy pilot, i.e., one who intended to keep flying for twenty years... there was a 23 percent probability that he would die in an aircraft accident. This did not even include combat deaths, since the military did not classify death in combat as accidental.” — 6 likes

“A persistent case of the bingos was enough to wash a man out of night carrier landings. That did not mean you were finished as a Navy pilot. It merely meant that you were finished so far as carrier ops were concerned, which meant that you were finished so far as combat was concerned, which meant you were no longer in the competition, no longer ascending the pyramid, no longer qualified for the company of those with the right stuff.” — 6 likes

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Preview — The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

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About Tom Wolfe

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