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Author
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Topic: Carrying the Fire (Michael Collins)
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WAWalsh
Member Posts: 809
From: Cortlandt Manor, NY
Registered: May 2000
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posted 06-08-2001 09:15 AM
   
I saw a new paperback edition of Michael Collin's "Carrying the Fire" in Barnes & Noble today (June 8, 2001). This remains my favorite astronaut autobiography (might help that it was the first I read many moons ago) and, certainly, no bookshelf should be without a copy. |
tegwilym
Member Posts: 2331
From: Sturgeon Bay, WI
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 06-08-2001 10:46 PM
I just found that book at Half Price Books a couple weeks ago. I immediately bought it! I think I have read that book about 3 times over the years, one of the best books ever!! |
DChudwin
Member Posts: 1096
From: Lincolnshire IL USA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 06-10-2001 08:24 PM
Years ago in Madison, Wisconsin, I found a copy of "Carrying the Fire" in a used bookstore. I opened the front cover and found that the first page was autographed by Michael Collins! I think I paid about $10 for the book. It is one of best books written about space up to that time. Needless to say it is a prized item in my space collection. It is amazing what you can find serendipitously. |
hinkler
Member Posts: 573
From: Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 05-08-2004 05:01 PM
Were all of the Adventure Library copies of "Carrying the Fire" signed by Michael Collins or were the signed copies part of a special members edition?I am sure someone on this forum has the answer. Thanks for your help. |
Gilbert
Member Posts: 1328
From: Carrollton, GA USA
Registered: Jan 2003
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posted 05-10-2004 08:39 AM
A book dealer told me that only 110 copies were signed. I have a signed copy but it is not numbered and does not indicate how many were signed. It just says signed edition. |
stsmithva
Member Posts: 1933
From: Fairfax, VA, USA
Registered: Feb 2007
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posted 08-20-2008 09:44 AM
Today's Washington Post children's page features as the KidsPost Summer Book Club choice "Carrying the Fire." The book is introduced by astronaut Don Thomas, who writes what an inspiration Michael Collins was to him as a young boy and mentions that he carried a copy of the book on a Columbia mission in July 1997.Here's the portion of the article that was online - the Thomas part wasn't. This book features beautiful writing, honest memories and some very funny astronaut stories. At 544 pages, it's long, but we bet many readers won't be able to put down this real-life adventure story. |
ea757grrl
Member Posts: 729
From: South Carolina
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 08-20-2008 07:11 PM
There's a reason "Carrying the Fire" is a classic. It's probably my favorite astronaut book; I first read it when I was 13 or 14, and have loved it ever since. I've found many since that I really enjoyed, but "Carrying the Fire" is the one my heart won't let go. It is a beautiful book.Of interest to the younger readers, Mike Collins also wrote "Flying To The Moon," which is essentially a condensed "Carrying the Fire." I found a fairly recent paperback copy in a used bookstore a year or so back. (I believe the book is also known as "Flying To The Moon and Other Strange Places.") |
micropooz
Member Posts: 1512
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 08-20-2008 08:40 PM
Carrying the Fire is what brought me back to the space hobby and business.I was a space fiend growing up in the 60's. But when college rolled around (early 1970's) aerospace was tanking so I decided to go study the (then) burgeoning nuclear power field. One summer day when I was working construction on a nuclear power plant, we got rained out. I went into town to the local bookstore where I found a paperback of Carrying the Fire. I bought it and couldn't put it down. That book convinced me that I really needed to be in the space biz, so I changed majors as soon as I got back to school that fall. Fortuitous decision - Three Mile Island happened a month before I graduated, and stalled the nuclear power industry for the last 30 years... Thanks Mike Collins! |
tegwilym
Member Posts: 2331
From: Sturgeon Bay, WI
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 08-21-2008 12:36 PM
Best space book EVER! |
Whizzospace
Member Posts: 110
From: San Antonio, TX
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 08-22-2008 07:42 PM
You are so right. The spirit, the wit, the genuinely good storytelling, all combine to make this one the gold standard. Even today, in venues like the documentary film "In Shadow of the Moon," General Collins' words and expressiveness really steal the show. |
spaceman1953
Member Posts: 953
From: South Bend, IN
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 08-24-2008 08:24 PM
This was also one of the first "space" books I read in its' entirety... each and every word, which is the only way I read and I thought it was superb then and now.And you know, I think this was a book, a hard cover, probably a first edition, that I paid absolute full retail price for in a mall near my home. As a broke, college student at the time, that was a lot of money! Now I am a broke, 55-year old and am always looking for a bargain! Cheers! You know, a good Apollo 11 40th anniversary project might be to read some of these classics again... and, hey, maybe even do a few "lectures" in the public library/school systems in the area! |
FFrench
Member Posts: 3161
From: San Diego
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 07-03-2009 02:15 AM
I browsed a copy of the 40th anniversary edition of "Carrying the Fire" in a bookstore today, and read the new introduction that Collins has written.It's a wonderfully wry and eloquent piece by him - reminding us, as if we needed any reminder, of what a great writer he is. He takes us up to date with his life and thoughts in a few succinct words - the few new pages alone are better than many full-length books... I'd recommend browsing it too. |
GoesTo11
Member Posts: 1309
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 2004
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posted 07-06-2009 10:35 AM
Well, a hardcover anniversary edition would have been nice, but I'm not complaining.  I have nothing, really, to add to other posters' praise of General Collins' wonderful memoir. I will say that in my own (sort of) humble opinion, any short list of essential books chronicling the Gemini-Apollo era begins with Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon" and Murray and Cox's "Apollo." "Carrying the Fire" would be my next choice. I also recall reading it the first time through and thinking on numerous occasions, "There's NO WAY that this wasn't ghost-written." At the time (I couldn't have been more than 12 or 13), I still bought into the stereotype of astronauts as being quite uncomfortable communicators outside of the technical arcana of their profession. General Collins definitely opened my eyes, and mind, on that score. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-22-2013 10:30 AM
Transcript/video to follow later, but Kevin Ford just said from space that "Carrying the Fire" was the first book that inspired him to pursue becoming an astronaut. On edit: Video time-cued here, and the transcript — I actually was inspired to pursue becoming an astronaut because of a book that I read when I was about 13 or 14 years old by an astronaut named Michael Collins, who was part of the Apollo 11 crew. It was called "Carrying the Fire." It was a fantastic account of his early life as a pilot and test pilot and I just really fell in love with that profession because of that book. And of course, what he did was one of the most magical things that has happened in the course of human history as far as I am concerned, with the trip he took to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. So that is what inspired me, that particular book. After that, I read lots and lots more that just inspired me further, but that was really the one that set it all off. |
RobertB
Member Posts: 160
From: Israel
Registered: Nov 2012
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posted 08-28-2013 10:47 PM
I've got an old copy of "Carrying the Fire" and I understand that the newer editions have been "updated". Can anyone tell me what the difference is? Goodreads: Carrying the Fire > Editions I see that the 1999 edition has 512 pages while the 2001 one has only 478. Is this a simple change in font size? Editor's note: Threads merged. |
canyon42
Member Posts: 238
From: Ohio
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 08-31-2013 05:03 PM
He wrote a new preface, which is 4 pages. I don't think anything else was changed or added in terms of the actual text. |
Lightyear69
Member Posts: 95
From: Germany
Registered: Oct 2013
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posted 12-21-2014 04:17 PM
I'm looking for the NASA photo numbers of Michael Collins in helmet and the Gemini X title-picture (b/w) of the book "Carrying the Fire." Thanks.Any help? |
Chariot412
Member Posts: 156
From: Lockport, NY, 14094
Registered: Jun 2011
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posted 04-30-2017 10:19 AM
Starting today, the audio version of "Carrying the Fire" is being offered on CD or audiobook: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys
by Michael Collins, narrated by David Colacci - Tantor Audio (April 30, 2017)
- ISBN-10: 1541452720
- ISBN-13: 978-1541452725
Looks like there may be delays in some formats depending on the retailer. |
Lev M
Member Posts: 139
From: Canada
Registered: Nov 2012
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posted 05-05-2017 08:40 PM
Somehow I am not exited about the voice but, at least, it gives me an opportunity to "read" the book when I am driving. At home I can revisit my hard copy of it to clarify something if needed.Update: I have to admit I got used to the voice and now it's okay for me. Even better, sometimes I am enjoying it. Currently, I am going through the astronauts assignments in Chapter 5. |
cspg
Member Posts: 6210
From: Geneva, Switzerland
Registered: May 2006
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posted 09-27-2018 10:13 AM
A 50th anniversary edition is due on June 11, 2019 with a new preface. - Paperback: 528 pages
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux (June 11, 2019)
- ISBN-10: 0374537763
- ISBN-13: 978-0374537760
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Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 04-18-2019 03:31 PM
collectSPACE 50 years later, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins is still 'Carrying the Fire'Four years after he orbited the moon alone during humanity's first lunar landing mission, Michael Collins brought everyone back on Earth along for the ride. In his 1973 book, "Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys," Collins set out to share what it was like "up there." And by all accounts, he succeeded. "Carrying the Fire" is wildly considered one of, if not the best of the astronaut-authored memoirs. In his original preface, Collins observed that the few years that had passed since the Apollo 11 mission had given him some perspective about how flying in space had changed his life. Now, five decades after his journey with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Collins has revisited "Carrying the Fire," penning a new foreword for a 50th anniversary edition of the book. collectSPACE recently caught up with Collins to talk about "carrying the fire" 50 years later.  |
ringo67
Member Posts: 179
From: Seekonk, Mass., USA
Registered: May 2003
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posted 04-18-2019 09:21 PM
Collins: I think books, in general, are little gems. They hide away on the shelves in libraries for a decade but then some young kid will pluck one out by mistake perhaps and dig into it and find something in there that he or she didn't know. So I'm a big fan of books. That young kid was me at age 7 in the mid- to late-70s. I pulled the brightly colored book down from the shelf, saw that it was about the space program, and I was hooked within the first 10 pages. It was the first "adult" book I ever read. It turned me into a reader and piqued my interest in history, not to mention space exploration. |
RobertB
Member Posts: 160
From: Israel
Registered: Nov 2012
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posted 06-14-2019 06:16 AM
Has anyone seen the new edition?Any changes besides the new preface? How interesting is it? |
Henry Heatherbank
Member Posts: 244
From: Adelaide, South Australia
Registered: Apr 2005
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posted 06-14-2019 08:40 AM
quote:
Originally posted by ringo67:
It turned me into a reader and piqued my interest in history, not to mention space exploration.
Precisely my story too, aged about 10, at the local library. |
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