An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth..., Chris Hadfield
An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth..., Chris Hadfield
7 Rating(s)
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
Club: $13.99

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything

Author: Chris Hadfield

Narrator: Chris Hadfield

Unabridged: 8 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/29/2013

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Travel to space and back with astronaut Chris Hadfield's "enthralling" bestseller as your eye-opening guide (Slate). 

Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield's success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst- and enjoy every moment of it.

In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement — and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff.

You might never be able to build a robot, pilot a spacecraft, make a music video or perform basic surgery in zero gravity like Col. Hadfield. But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth — especially your own.

"Hadfield proves himself to be not only a fierce explorer of the universe, but also a deeply thoughtful explorer of the human condition." —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

Reviews

Goodreads review by ricardo (is) reading on January 25, 2016

Depending on your outlook on things, this book will either make you feel like you have lived a vastly underwhelming and underachieving sort of life, full of these lost opportunities, these missed chances... or it will make you feel infinitely inspired, like you can live more and do more just be more......more

Goodreads review by Whitney on June 12, 2018

I started this book just because I needed an audiobook to listen to as I got ready in the morning and drove to work, and this one was available. For backstory, I’m obsessed with NASA’s youtube channel. If you haven’t watched their videos about how astronauts live in space—showering, eating, sleeping......more

Goodreads review by Caroline on May 20, 2015

Aeronautics aside, this book could have been called "How to make friends and influence people - the Chris Hadfield way". Like everyone else I ended up adoring the man, but he sure is a preacher, and the book is plump with sermons about being humble, being kind to one's fellow men, the goodness of pr......more

Goodreads review by Josephine on January 05, 2014

Something frustrating happened at work the other — a “something” that continually resurfaces again and again and again. And, predictably, the few of us who were stuck working last week, did what we always do: we griped bitterly, stirring ourselves up in the same old fit of resentment and anger. When......more

Goodreads review by Darcy on January 05, 2014

As a Canadian I am horribly biased towards Chris Hadfield and pretty much anything he does. I was completely captured by his photos from space on Twitter, his videos about life on the International Space Station, and his uncanny ability to make space travel cool again. Once I found out he was publis......more


Quotes

A Slate Staff Pick for Best Books 2013

"A very human glance into a rarified world.... The vacuum of space is unforgiving and brutal. Life on earth isn't easy, either. Mr. Hadfield has genuinely and refreshingly increased our understanding of how to thrive in both places."—The Wall Street Journal

"Hadfield is a genius, a man of science and technology and no first-timer to the universe."—New York Post

"A satisfying behind-the-scenes look at the life of an astronaut.... A page-turning memoir of life as a decorated astronaut."—Kirkus Reviews

"Houston, we have a superstar."—Washington Post

"This memoir is part fascinating view, part Boy Scout manual."—New York Times

"Hadfield proves himself to be not only a fierce explorer of the universe, but also a deeply thoughtful explorer of the human condition, capable of articulating those most universal of inquiries in simple yet profound language.... The book itself is absolutely spectacular."—Brain Pickings

"Lessons from his new book, AN ASTRONAUT'S GUIDE TO LIFE, are so inspiring that it's hard to decide which one to tell you about."—USA Today

"Our planet's one-man ambassador to the universe."—Gothamist

"Thoroughly engaging.... In a low-key style, he makes a persuasive case that the oft-derided Space Station is both a marvel of engineering and a triumph for science, and he paints the cartoon heroism of the NASA astronaut corps in a much more realistic, and yet in many ways even more admirable, light."—Corey S. Powell, American Scientist