by Buzz Aldrin
First published 2009
Buzz Aldrin opens with the moment he stepped onto the lunar surface in 1969, becoming the second person to walk on another world. He called it "magnificent desolation" as he gazed at the alien landscape with space stretching endlessly behind him. The Apollo 11 mission brought him global fame, but returning to Earth proved harder than the journey to the moon. His Air Force career lost meaning as NASA turned him into a publicity tool for endless world tours. Depression and alcoholism took hold. He burned through two marriages and watched his military service end in failure. At his lowest point, he sold cars when he wasn't crashing them in drunken stupors. The central tension emerges between his extraordinary achievement and his inability to find purpose afterward. Aldrin finally embraces sobriety and discovers love with Lois, who becomes his anchor. He transforms himself into an advocate for space exploration and commercial spaceflight. The book closes on his hard-won enthusiasm for life and his vision for humanity's future journey to Mars.
Genres: biography, space, addiction, 20th-century, autobiography, memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, second-chance
Setting: Moon
Period: 1969
336 pages · Hardcover · Harmony Books
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse, depression, mental-illness