Join us for NPL's Just the Facts Book Group! This group selects and discusses nonfiction books. All are welcome.

PLEASE NOTE, THIS MONTH'S MEETING IS VIRTUAL.

This event will be held on Zoom. Register online by clicking here or by calling 978-465-4428 x 242. A link will be emailed to participants automatically. If you do not receive a link, please email info@newburyportpl.org or call 978-465-4428 x242.

This month’s pick is Apollo 8 : The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon, by Jeffrey Kluger.

In August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just sixteen weeks, the United States would launch humankind's first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another.

Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken.

Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet.

(Description from catalog record.)