A wonderful look back at a time when the men-who-were-men shot for the stars - and made it, even as their individual lives threatened to buckle under the strain. The same thrill I felt as a kid watching Apollo 11, I felt reading The Last Pilot - it captures the spirit of the time and the complexities of being human in any time rather beautifully. The book is not without its flaws here and there - time begins to leap forward without much acknowledgement as the book nears the end, leaving the reader a bit unmoored if you don't know exactly when this or that flight went up (I don't even recall hearing about Kennedy's death, just suddenly the Daisy Girl tv ad), and the lack of quotation marks will always be a pet peeve of mine, even with Cormac McCarthy. But the novel transcends any little issues with its expansive, joyous look at the possibility of humanity - even in the face of tragedy. It's a reminder that all we need to do, to find hope, is look at the stars and say, "Next? There."

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