A Sunday Times must read book of 2019 As heard on Radio 4 Book of the Week 'An out-of-this-world read ... brilliant and compelling. Morton is a high-octane British science journalist, and every chapter is littered with material that strikes, amazes or haunts ... this is a book filled not just with a lifetime's knowledge of its subject but with a lifetime's suppressed excitement.' James McConnachie, Sunday Times Every generation has looked up from the Earth and wondered at the beauty of the Moon. 50 years ago, a few Americans became the first to do the reverse - with the whole world watching through their eyes. In this short but wide-ranging book, Oliver Morton explores the history and future of humankind's relationship with the Moon. A counterpoint in the sky, it has shaped our understanding of the Earth from Galileo to Apollo. Its gentle light has spoken of love and loneliness; its battered surface of death and the cosmic. For some, it is a future on which humankind has turned its back. For others, an adventure yet to begin. Advanced technologies, new ambitions and old dreams mean that men, women and robots now seem certain to return to the Moon. What will they learn there about the universe, the Earth-and themselves? And, this time, will they stay?

Elon Musk, Oliver Morton says, is "a prick". Not, though, "an irredeemable arsehole". In such fine gradations of profanity one can take the measure of a man. And when the same linguistic skill (Morton's, not Musk's) is applied to our nearest satellite, rather than to a billionaire who calls cave rescuers "paedos", it can elevate a mere barren rock to something altogether more interesting. The Apollo landings began 50 years ago, and ended 47 years ago, but remain strong in our cultural imagination. Morton's sometimes sparse, sometimes lyrical book is about those missions, and about the human significance of their destination - barren rock where "people see... a reflection of themselves". It is also about the future, and a new space age. Led by pricks such as Musk. -- The best science and medicine books of 2019 * Times *
An out-of-this-world read ... brilliant and compelling. Morton is a high-octane British science journalist, and every chapter is littered with material that strikes, amazes or haunts ... this is a book filled not just with a lifetime's knowledge of its subject but with a lifetime's suppressed excitement. -- James McConnachie * Sunday Times *
I have read almost everything written about the lunar missions, yet I have never encountered a book that captures so perfectly and so lyrically the ridiculous power that the moon holds over human sensibility. This is a beautiful book about Luna - a "Moon of many stories, Moon as might be and Moon as always was, Moon longed for and Moon happened upon". It exposes the magnificent desolation of the lunar quest, yet still captures the beguiling hold that the moon has over all of us. -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times *
Wonderful and comprehensive ... full of human stories and rich with lunar-obsessed characters -- Rowan Hooper * New Scientist *
A very good book about the Moon but even more admirably, a different one. It is good because it is superbly well-written and enjoyably organised. It is different because it looks beyond Apollo towards the future ... A pleasure to read. * Economist *
a superb lunar history that explores both its past and future * Sunday Times *
[Morton] crafts elegant, witty prose and the book is full of interesting observations and insights -- Darragh McManus * Irish Independent *
This is a book to bend your mind ... the most eloquent exploration of our modern understanding of the Moon -- Alexandra Witze * Nature *

Oliver Morton is a senior editor at Economist and an award winning writer. He is the author of Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World, Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet and The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World.