Full Moon (original 1999; edition 2002)

This is a beautifully produced book of images taken primarily from the Apollo moon missions (there's a couple from the earlier Gemini missions, too), which after 40-odd years are still breathtaking.

The photographs are presented on black pages with only the image numbering as text. Captions are given for each photograph at the end of the book and, while this means much flicking back and forth on a first read, means that the images stand for themselves when you go back over them, which I certainly will.

There are several of the iconic images that have entered the global consciousness: Ed White's spacewalk; Earthrise from lunar orbit; Buzz Aldrin's footprint in the lunar "soil", "Full Earth": but mostly they are taken from NASA archives which have not been widely circulated.

There's a short essay by the author at the end of the book, describing how he conceived the project and the rationale for his choice of pictures to include.

I don't understand how anybody could not be moved by these amazing photographs that document what is still the crowning achievement of human culture. If you think the moon-landings were a hoax, shame on you. ( )

A collection of photographs from various Apollo moon missions (and one slightly out-of-place Gemini mission) strung together to create a wordless composite narrative including liftoff, looking back at the Earth, taking a spacewalk, exploring the moon, and returning to the Earth. The images include both sweeping panoramic landscapes and small, strangely mundane close-ups of tools and equipment. Many of them are extremely striking, and editor Michael Light deliberately chose some of the more obscure images from the NASA archives, so a lot of them were unfamiliar to me, as well.

I wasn't entirely sure, as I paged through the photographs, just how well the central conceit worked, as I found myself wishing for a little more context and maybe a little less of an art project vibe, but then I realized that the back of the book included captions for everything, as well as an essay about the photographs and the conditions under which they were taken, which satisfied my desire pretty well. It also includes a slightly longer essay by Andrew Chaikin. This perhaps suffers a little by trying to describe all the Apollo missions all at once, as if he were trying to condense his excellent A Man on the Moon down to less than a dozen pages. But the quotes he includes from the astronauts about what they saw and felt on their journeys are marvelous.

I'm not entirely sure quite how to rate this, but I think I have to give it at least 4/5, if just for the breathtaking lunar panoramas alone. ( )

This is an absolutely extraordinary book. 128 sometimes breathtaking pictures of the Moon (and the Earth), most of which are not easy to be found anywhere else, take you on a journey to our nearest celestial companion. The sharpness of the images, the stark contrasts between lunar surface and the pitch black sky, and in the midst of this void the comparatively most humble signs of human technical ingenuity invite the reader (or the spectator) to take in the daunting beauty behind it. ( )

Just like being there: For someone who was too young to appreciate the Apollo moon landings at the time, this book gives me the feeling I was actually there, with the astronauts! The exceptionally high quality of the images, most of which need no caption makes this almost without exception one of the astronomical books of the decade, if not the century!Its a pity that this book shows us what we lost when we left the moon in 1972, and what awaits us when we return.

This is the most beautiful book of Apollo-related photographs I've ever seen. Yes, it's "just" a picture book, but anyone who has any interest in Apollo will want this one on their shelf to look at again an again, and to show to others. Better than anything Ron Howard or Tom Hanks could create. ( )