The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon, by Todd Zwillich (author), Angelo Di Loreto (narrator)

Audible Studios, July 2019

John C. Houboldt was a airplane engineer who worked for NASA, and became interested, in some ways obsessed with, the Moon program that he logically ought to have no role in.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were already, before President Kennedy ever made his speech committing the US to get to the Moon and back before the end of the 1960s, space program scientists were already working on how to do it. There were three basic approaches--the direct approach, using a single large rocket to lift from Earth, land on its tail on the Moon, and return home; Earth rendezvous, lifting smaller units into Earth orbit and the vehicle to reach the Moon there; and lunar orbital rendezvous. Lunar orbital rendezvous is the methods used in the end: the command module waiting in lunar orbit while the lunar lander brought two members of the crew to the surface of the Moon and back.

A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs, by Ben Garrod (author, narrator)

Audible Original, July 2019

As kids, most of us loved dinosaurs, and had a favorite dinosaur. As adults, other things, more urgent at least, if not necessarily more important, have displaced dinosaurs at the center of our lives. Not every dinosaur lover grows up to be a dinosaur scientist!

But Ben Garrod agrees that that's a terrible shame, and presents a really engaging, informative, entertaining summary of the current state of our knowledge of dinosaurs.

Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations into Human Personality, by Mark Leary (author, narrator)

The Great Courses, February 2018

Many of us want to understand personality, our own and other people's better, and in this Great Courses set of lectures, Mark Leary presents the current state of knowledge in psychology, neuroscience, and genetics, as it applies to human personality, how it develops, how it affects our choices and our relationships with others, and how much we can affect our own personalities so that we can improve those things if we're not satisfied currently.

This isn't a self-help book. It's not a handbook to fixing yourself. It's intended to expand your knowledge and understanding, and I found that it does that.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman

Berkley Publishing Group, ISBN 9780451491879, July 2019

Nina Hill works in a bookstore and lives in her tiny apartment, both in the Larchmont neighborhood of Los Angeles. She has a cat named Phil, a mother who is a renowned, world-traveling photojournalist, and no other family.

As far as she knows.

Obviously there must have been a father involved at some point, but her mother has told her nothing except that he wouldn't have been a good father.

Then one day a lawyer walks into the bookstore, tells her that her father has died, and she's mentioned in the will.

She has several sisters, a brother, nieces and nephews, and even two grandnieces and a grandnephew. Her oldest sister, you see, is thirty years older, and her youngest is just ten years old. Her brother is just a few months older, because his mother was pregnant when Nina was conceived. It's a large and complicated family, with landmines she will need to discover.

Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, by Ursula K. Le Guin & David Naimon

Tin House Books, ISBN 9781941040997, April 2018

In the last months of her life, Ursula K. Le Guin did a series of interview with David Naimon for Oregon radio station KBOO, and they decided to turn those interviews into a book. This is that book, which Le Guin did not live quite long enough to see in print. It's now a finalist for the Hugo Awards in the Best Related Work category.

There are three sections--a conversation about fiction, a conversation about poetry, and a conversation about non-fiction. Le Guin, of course, wrote all three, and did all three well.

Hobbit Documentary, by Lindsay Ellis & Angelina M.

Lindsay Ellis, 2018

In 2001, 2002, and 2003, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies were released, and instantly became one of the most loved movie trilogies of our time. Lindsay Ellis was captivated, inspired, motivated. She went on to become a popular YouTube essayist and media critic.

In 2012, 2013, and 2014, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit movies came out. It took Lindsay a while to work through her disappointment and frustration, and get to work producing this in-depth, thoughtful, and frankly entertaining, analysis of what went wrong, and why.

Every Hill and Mountain (History Mystery #3), by Deborah Heal (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Write Brain Books, September 2014 (original publication March 2013)

Abby Thomas has been having a productive and enjoyable summer in southern Illinois, with her tutoring student/college service project Merri, her new boyfriend, handsome and sweet John Roberts, and all the new friends she's been making. Unfortunately, she has also told her friend and college roommate, Kate, about the very unusual computer program, Beautiful Houses, which has enabled them to "time-surf" and solve local mysteries.

The most recent one was the Old Dears' (Eulah and Beulah) genealogy mystery of why their father's side of the family seemed so oddly truncated. This has reignited Kate's interest in her own genealogy project, and she's told her wonderful boyfriend, Ryan, about it.

None Such As She (Moorish Empire #3), by Melissa Addey

Letterpress Publishing, June 2019

In A String of Silver Beads, we met Zaynab as the dangerous and powerful rival of Kella, Yusuf bin Tashfin's first wife. In None Such As She, we see Zaynab from her own point of view, starting as a child, just ten years old, when her own father takes a second wife. Child Zaynab is easy to like. She loves her parents. She's a rebellious child, happy to run and play with the street children when she can. She's bright and lively. She's fond of her servant Miryam, and wary of her mother's servant, Hela, who is a mistress of herbal medicine, and seemingly a scholar as only a man should be.

When Zaynab grows to an age where she's eligible for marriage, she's not comfortable with the way she is frankly assessed for her assets as a potential wife and bearer of children, as well as her father's wealth and connections are a successful rug merchant. Yet there is not avoiding it. In time, one of the men who comes to her father's dinner table is Yusuf bin Ali, a lord but not an amir, who speaks to her, she says, like a person. It's the start of her career.

Grace, Jack, & Magical Cats Boxed Set #1, by Mary Matthews (author), Sheila Book (narrator)

Mary Frances Matthews, December 2013 (original publication April 2012)

These are the first four adventures of Grace Wentworth, Jack Brewster, and their "magical cats," Titania and Zeus.

These stories are just pure fun,and work best if you don't worry about how that cats do what they do. Beyond saying that they are magical, there is no explanation attempted. If you've lived with cats, though, that can be explanation enough. Most of us who have are pretty sure they can teleport, at the least.

The time is the 1920s, the place is Coronado Island, California. It's the Roaring Twenties, and Prohibition, and most people think the economic boom will go on forever.

Medical Myths, Lies, & Half-Truths: What We Think We Know May Be Hurting Us, by Steven Novella (author, narrator)

The Great Courses, July 2013 (original publication 2010)

We live in a sea of freely available information, easily accessed on the internet, and this can be a very good thing, especially with medical information.

Or it can be a bad things, sometimes, especially with medical information.