The Queue: Advent Edition

Better Late than Never | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Commentary: I finished Across the Airless Wilds back in December, during the fiftieth anniversaryof Apollo 17 (7-19 December).

Across the Airless Wilds is right up my alley, a book I should have loved, a popular-level dive into the origin & engineering of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, A.K.A. the "Moon buggy," used on half the Apollo Moon landings: Apollo 15, Apollo 16, & Apollo 17. A book I should have loved but didn't, because of the bizarre, unnecessary asides by the author, Earl Swift, that are scattered throughout the book. These asides are apropos of nothing in the narrative & add nothing to the narrative; I found them quite distracting, as I would be continually taken out of the story of the Lunar Roving Vehicle—the very reason I was ever reading the book—& transported without context to a dank & dark corner of Swift's mind, such as it is. I blame both Swift & his editor, who ought have reined in Swift's terrible instincts.

The story of the Lunar Roving Vehicle is fascinating & that magnificent machine helped to make the final Moon landings the triumphs they were, but I do not recommend Across the Airless Wilds. I hope to find a popular-level book on the Lunar Roving Vehicle that I can recommend to you, dear readers.

The plan is now to finish Lumen gentium ("Light of the nations"), the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church & then start A Devotional Journey into the Easter Mystery before circling back to Dei verbum ("Word of God"), the Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation.

Recently
Robert Barron, Eucharist
Father Blake Britton, Reclaiming Vatican II: What It (Really) Says, What It Means, and How It Calls Us to Renew the Church
Earl Swift, Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings

Currently
Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, The Word on Fire Vatican II Collection

Presently
Christopher Carstens, A Devotional Journey into the Easter Mystery (Lent 2023)
Heather Augustyn, Ska: An Oral History (SKApril 2023)
Xavier Rynne, Vatican Council II
John W. O'Malley, What Happened at Vatican II