A sublime scrapbook tribute to an unexpected career in orbit.
A debut memoir focuses on a venturesome Southern farm boy who fulfilled a lifelong dream to explore space as an astronaut.
From his earliest days, decorated military veteran and retired astronaut Bridges had an undeniably adventurous spirit. His book, split into three sections, first explores his quest to learn everything about space travel during an inquisitive youth, then his full immersion in the NASA program, and, finally, his emergence as a key leader in numerous Air Force interstellar projects. Beginning at age 5, the author displayed a lively imagination and explorative spirit as he scoured the forests around his suburban Georgia home in search of bears and buried treasure. Born during World War II, Bridges writes fondly of his early life as the son of a registered nurse mother and a father formerly enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Though the family was preoccupied with work, this aspect afforded the shy author and his sister, Eva Mae, many opportunities for “testing boundaries” even after they relocated to his beloved grandparents’ tobacco farm. In high school, Bridges developed an affinity for science and engineering, marveling at how Soviet space explorers launched an artificial satellite into an elliptical low Earth orbit. With his family’s immense support, he decided to pursue a career in space travel: “I didn’t care how improbable that might be. I saw it as my great adventure.” His strenuous years training at the Air Force Academy provide plenty of stories of camaraderie, cadet scandals, and his marriage to his first love, Benita, in 1967 (they are still together). After flying fighter jets in the Vietnam War, he saw his career trajectory soar, spanning intensive training in pilot school with rocket-powered aircraft, working at the Pentagon, and becoming a NASA astronaut candidate.
In his early 40s, after raising two children with his wife, Bridges accepted a prestigious offer to pilot the Challenger Spacelab 2 shuttle mission in 1985. This climactic event becomes the memoir’s capstone and is narrated in exacting detail, providing a riveting account of his time manning the craft as it shot into space despite a terrifying episode of engine failure. His career would climb even higher in the Air Force before the author retired in 1996. Though the impressively written book needs no embellishment, Bridges’ story is further enhanced with generous personal photographs illustrating the many pivotal moments of his momentous career. There are shots of Bridges immersed in a water buoyancy spacewalker simulator; near the combat jets he piloted; with the Spacelab 2 crew; and during his stint as an Air Force major general, perhaps his crowning achievement. In this obvious labor of love, Bridges, at 79, reflects on a life lived to the fullest, with many dreams accomplished and countless boundaries and obstacles conquered. While he shares a somewhat overwhelming amount of detail throughout his impassioned self-portrait, what will resonate most with readers of all ages is the author’s fearless spirit and perseverance in achieving seemingly insurmountable goals. Even readers with just a casual interest in space travel and interstellar exploration will find much to savor in this admirable, inspiring, and heartfelt account. The memoir proves that with enough drive and determination, anything is possible.
A sublime scrapbook tribute to an unexpected career in orbit.Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63107-042-6
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Heart Ally Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
