Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Learn why NASA astronaut Mike Collins calls this extraordinary space race story "the best book on Apollo": this inspiring and intimate ode to ingenuity celebrates one of the most daring feats in human history.
When the alarm went off forty thousand feet above the moon's surface, both astronauts looked down at the computer to see 1202 flashing on the readout. Neither of them knew what it meant, and time was running out . . .
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. One of the world's greatest technological achievements -- and a triumph of the American spirit -- the Apollo 11 mission was a mammoth undertaking involving more than 410,000 men and women dedicated to winning the space race against the Soviets.
Set amid the tensions and upheaval of the sixties and the Cold War, Shoot for the Moon is a gripping account of the dangers, the challenges, and the sheer determination that defined not only Apollo 11, but also the Mercury and Gemini missions that came before it. From the shock of Sputnik and the heart-stopping final minutes of John Glenn's Mercury flight to the deadly whirligig of Gemini 8, the doomed Apollo 1 mission, and that perilous landing on the Sea of Tranquility -- when the entire world held its breath while Armstrong and Aldrin battled computer alarms, low fuel, and other problems -- James Donovan tells the whole story.
Both sweeping and intimate, Shoot for the Moon is "a powerfully written and irresistible celebration" of one of humankind's most extraordinary accomplishments ( Booklist , starred review).

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Prologue (p. 3)
• Part I Up
• 1 Cossacks in Space (p. 9)
• 2 Of Monkeys and Men (p. 31)
• 3 "The Howling Infinite" (p. 46)
• 4 Man on a Missile (p. 74)
• Part II Around
• 5 In Orbit (p. 103)
• 6 Under Pressure (p. 117)
• 7 The Gusmobile (p. 137)
• 8 The Walk, and a Sky Gone Berserk (p. 168)
• Part III Out
• 9 Inferno (p. 201)
• 10 Recovery (p. 221)
• 11 Phoenix and Earthrise (p. 243)
• 12 "Amiable Strangers" (p. 262)
• 13 A Practice Run and a Dress Rehearsal (p. 287)
• Part IV Down
• 14 "You're Go" (p. 301)
• 15 The Translunar Express (p. 322)
• 16 Descent to Luna (p. 345)
• 17 Moondust (p. 366)
• Epilogue (p. 390)
• Acknowledgments (p. 395)
• Notes (p. 397)
• Bibliography (p. 429)
• Index (p. 440)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Donovan (A Terrible Glory) impressively chronicles the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, culminating in Americans' successful landing on the moon in July 1969. He succinctly relates the major milestones of the space race: the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957, the selection and celebrity of NASA's Mercury Seven astronauts, John F. Kennedy's vow to put a man on the moon by decade's end, John Glenn's orbit of the earth, the increasingly advanced missions of Project Gemini, America's mid-'60s push past the Soviets after years of technological inferiority, the fatal fire on Apollo 1 in 1967 that almost derailed the whole program, and NASA's recovery (especially Apollo 8's lunar orbit in December 1968). The final quarter of the book focuses on Apollo 11, from the rocky process of forming its team through its years of training, its lunar landing, Neil Armstrong's first steps, and its return to Earth. Exceptionally researched, this exciting, sometimes harrowing book highlights the work not only of the pioneering astronauts but also of thousands of technicians and engineers. This is a perfect volume to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing and all that led up to it. Photos. Agent: B.J. Robbins, B.J. Robbins Literary Agency. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* With NASA's recent announcement about a planned return to the moon coupled to fiftieth anniversaries of Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 and recent release of the movie First Man, profiling the late astronaut Neil Armstrong, interest in the long-retired Apollo space program has been undergoing an overdue revival. The best-selling author of works on the Alamo and the battle of Little Bighorn, Donovan combines his masterful research skills and narrative gifts in recounting the full story of the most famous Apollo trip, the one that delivered Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon's surface. Donovan begins with the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the tiny Soviet satellite that ignited the space race between the U.S. and Russia, and takes readers through the early days of failed rocket launches and orbiting monkeys before NASA began its Herculean efforts to realize President Kennedy's 1961 dream of landing men on the moon by the decade's end. In the often gripping chapters on Apollo 11, Donovan reveals many colorful details about behind-the-scenes pressures, such as an early argument between Aldrin and Armstrong about who goes first. Drawing on dozens of interviews with the era's engineers and scientists, Donovan's history is a powerfully written and irresistible celebration of the Apollo missions.--Carl Hays Copyright 2018 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A vigorous exploration of the Space Age, a frontier oddly befitting Wild West historian Donovan (The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamoand the Sacrifice that Forged a Nation, 2012, etc.).The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Apollo 11 on the moon and Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step" pronouncement. That history and the long chain of efforts leading up to the landing have been well-documented, not least by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff. Even so, Dallas-based historian Donovan finds fresh things to say about the eventsas when, for instance, he recounts Buzz Aldrin's constant lobbying to be the first to set foot on the moon, a campaign that his peers found tedious but not entirely unseemly. That Armstrong was chosen to lead and then kept in that role, Donovan writes, strongly reflects a priority: "NASA wanted to make a clear statement about the non-military nature of the landing and of the American space program as a whole," and Armstrong was both a civilian and senior in the hierarchy, making him a natural choice. Aldrin was privately devastated but put up a brave front. In Donovan's hands, pioneering space scientist Wernher von Braun gets some deliverance from the Tom Lehrer school of lampoonery: True, he'd worked for the Nazis, but he also made remarks about the Hitler regime critical enough to be charged with treason, interrupting his perhaps unlikely playboy lifestyle. Just so, Donovan turns to small but meaningful episodes that speak volumes: NASA's grudging addition of various lunar experiments "for the science guys"; Aldrin's ministering of Communion by means of a tiny vial of sacramental wine that he smuggled aboard for the purpose; the fact that only by landing there could we be sure that "the moon's colorwas various shades of gray." The author closes with the hopeful thought that after a long hiatus, we may soon be heading back into space.A welcome addition to the literature of space exploration. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.