Since we are fast approaching the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing I thought I would read an appropriate book for the occasion. It shouldn't have been this one. Brinkley's main focus in the book is the politics surrounding the Space Race and JFK's life and political career. There is much about the opportunist, former Nazi, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun who became the one in charge of building the rockets for the Mercury and Gemini missions. Since the focus of the book was Kennedy's involvement in fueling the Space Race the later Apollo missions are an afterthought of the story. I listened to the audiobook and found the narration to be less than stellar. The constant pronunciation of von Braun's name as "Vaughn Brown" was irksome. The author's repeated flip-flopping views on some of the political figures made it seem like he was unsuccessfully trying to seem impartial. For a much better account of the Apollo moonshots I recommend Failure is Not an Option by former NASA flight director, Gene Kranz.
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