I am starting small with this look at my space books and among the smallest are the Observer series of books. Published by Frederick Warne, the Observers are a British staple and have been ongoing as a series for decades. These two hail from 1972 and 1974 respectively, the Manned Space having a cover price of just 50p and the later Unmanned has a price sticker inside for £1.25! Now thats inflation for you.
Both pocket sized books written by TVs space correspondent Reginald Turnhill, who was usually wheeled out by ITV to explain the more interesting bits of space news, such as the launch of Voyager or the Viking missions to Mars. Both books are very comprehensive and packed with detailed information and excellent photographic reference, backed up by clear, concise line drawings.
I've had Manned Spaceflight for a number of years, but only actually stumbled across Unmanned recently and I much prefer the second volume as it covers space probes from Russia, USA, France, Japan, China and the fledgling European Space Agency.
Had the 'Observers book of 'Manned Spaceflight' and 'Frontiers of Space' book. Great stuff for a young imagination. Pity the Observers books are no longer around. Later on there was the 'Spacecraft 2000 to 2100AD' and similar series of books. Great times.
ReplyDeleteGot the manned one. My favourite space books are Chaikin's A man on the Moon and, oddly, The Apollo Adventure, which is supposed to be about the making of the Apollo 13 feature film but is in fact a pretty good overview of the Apollo programme.
ReplyDeleteFrontiers of Space and Andrew Chaykin are on the bookshelf, so expect a showing soon!
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