|  | Authors: Buzz Aldrin, Ken Abraham
Publisher: Harmony
List Price: $27.00
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Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 88351
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307463451
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.450092
EAN: 9780307463456
ASIN: 0307463451
Publication Date: June 23, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Book is in good condition. Cover may have some wear. All pages are clean. Orders ship the next business day in secure bubble packs. Free tracking on all domestic orders. Your satisfaction is guaranteed!
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Showing reviews 21-25 of 38
 Buzz is twice a hero August 20, 2009
Gustavo Moretto (NY, NY)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
First the moon.
Then, just as important for all of us, his recovery from his personal troubles.
This recovery was, without a doubt, more baffling for him personally than going to the moon.
We all owe him a debt of gratitude.
History could have told us that one of the first men to walk on the moon could not cope with depression and alcoholism.
He could. He is twice a hero.
 Astronaut makes huge comeback August 17, 2009
John A. Sarkett (Chicago)
We recently watched the film GOODBYE LENIN! where a former East German astronaut is reduced, post-career, to driving a taxi. Implausible? Can't happen here? Astronaut Buzz Aldrin found himself selling Cadillacs, used and new, not long after he walked on the moon (along with Neil Armstrong, who got the bulk of the credit for being first, a point that rankles the author and he never quite shakes). He tells the whole story, beginning to present, including his moon walk, in MAGNIFICENT DESOLATION, his on-again, off-again story of disappointment and depression aggravated with chronic alcoholism. A lot of comeback stories make it seem pretty simple, and pretty straight line up, 45 degrees bottom to top. This one is not that, there is a lot of zigzagging along the bottom, and I think the person who is stuck in the failure mode will relate to this story because of that. What ultimately catalyzes Aldrin's triumph over despair? Fundamental stuff, like swearing off drink, and the love of a good woman, Lois, who herself undergoes a stunning reversal of fortune, from millions in family bank stock (her father founded Western Savings & Loan in 1929) to zeroes in the same bank stock, when its charter is revoked in the 1989 savings and loan debacle.
An apocryphal yet hopeful tale of the fragility of life here on planet Earth as (once seen) from the moon. Many caveats for the close reader. And finally, yet another of the Extraordinary Comebacks we collect for future versions of our book by the same name.
 Mostly a self-absorbed tantrum August 16, 2009
Big Monster Truck (Florida)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
The book had potential, and although it may have been a breakthrough in the 70s for a tough-guy hero to announce he suffered from depression and alcoholism, it is a tired, old story by now. At the beginning of the book, I felt for the guy, but as he rambles on for page after page of his angst, it gets old fast. He places blame on others abundantly, all the time denying that he does. This book has little to do with the space program, but the first three stories gives a summary of the mission. If he would have stayed to topic, it may have been a decent read.
Magnificent Inspiration! August 7, 2009
Tom Weikert (Alpharetta, GA United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is merely symbolic that Buzz Aldrin should publish his autobiography to coincide with the 40th anniversary of America's first lunar landing. Upon reading Magnificent Desolation, one realizes that perhaps much more important to the author is the 30 years of sobriety he celebrates in 2008! His story, as difficult to comprehend as it may be for some given all the author has accomplished, is as much an account of his triumph over depression and alcoholism as it is the tale of a genuine American hero and his experiences during the famous Apollo 11 mission.
We learn early in this book that astronauts are not superhuman. Indeed, if Aldrin's post-moonwalk experiences are any indication, some astronauts encounter significantly greater challenges upon returning to earth. After enjoying all the fanfare accompanying his successful mission to the moon, Aldrin finds himself for the first time in some 20+ years without a star to reach for, a new goal to give his life meaning and purpose. Stepping into a yawning void back on earth, he struggles mightily both in and out of his Air Force Colonel's uniform. He fruitlessly searches deep within himself to figure out what's next for a man who has reached the very pinnacle of his profession.
It gets much worse. His marriage failing and his career flaming out, Aldrin comes face to face with the clinical depression that defeated both his maternal grandfather and mother. He recklessly careens between seeking professional help one day and refuge in the bottle the next. At this point, his recounting of the moonwalk complete, many readers may find the details of Aldrin's life to be alternately mundane and self-aggrandizing. It is clear from even the earliest pages that Buzz Aldrin has a colossal ego. But would we not expect that in a man who graduated #3 in his class at West Point, flew 67 combat missions in Korea, earned a doctorate from MIT in Astronautics, and pioneered the Gemini and Apollo space programs?
Aldrin's unusual candor is refreshing for a man who has achieved so much. He speaks from the heart throughout the book, ably co-written with Ken Abraham, and lets us in on his deeply personal, emotional travails. While the author's battle with depression is already well documented, his struggles with alcoholism may be new to many readers. Initially believing that heavy drinking just sort of came with the territory, Aldrin eventually realizes with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous that a fifth of Scotch a day is to depression what kerosene is to a campfire! He finally recognizes that for all his intellect and internal fortitude, he is utterly whipped.
One can find much inspiration in Buzz Aldrin's story. Relapse after relapse, he stumbles through one futile attempt at sobriety after another. Beset by a couple of broken marriages, a stint as a car salesman, an arrest and other 'earthly' indignities, he hits rock bottom and only then does his final serious attempt at recovery take hold. One small step for man and one giant leap for Buzz Aldrin - a man for whom, alas, failure is not an option. Thanks to a stern and controlling father, Buzz spends half a lifetime believing that admitting weakness was something only others did. As for publicly acknowledging mental illness? Now that was truly for the weak-willed and faint of heart!
Through a rigorous program of action, this unusual rocket man is able to find sobriety, regain his sanity, and discover a new, lasting happiness - albeit with the occasional nagging bout of depression. But no story of 'hometown boy makes good' would be complete without that boy discovering the woman of his dreams. Much of the latter part of the book details how Buzz romances Lois Driggs Cannon and finds not only a soulmate, but a highly intelligent and capable businesswoman fully his equal. More important, Lois's buoyant spirit serves as a kind of buffer between Buzz and his downward emotional spirals. She is a remarkable human being in her own right!
With Lois's help and a renewed, missionary zeal, Buzz champions the democratization of space travel and through a vast network of business interests and contacts advances his visionary ideas. The last couple of chapters detail his persistent attempts at winning acceptance for his aspirations to land a mission on Mars and to fly average Americans into space, including testifying before Congress. Buzz's fervent desire to place America again firmly in the lead in space exploration is truly inspiring!
Magnificent Desolation is more than a story of one extraordinary American's emergence from the depths of despair. It is the tale of a man's rediscovering himself and the passion that ignited his boyhood dreams.
'Superman' finds his kryptonite... then glorious redemption on his long journey home from the moon.
Magnificent Inspiration!
 Just Not Good Enough August 4, 2009
Tim Challies (Oakville, Ontario)
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
Magnificent DesolationMagnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldrin (with Ken Abraham). This is Aldrin's second or third stab at an autobiography, but the first I've read. I saw it on the New York Times list of bestsellers, timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the moon landings, and thought I'd have to give it a read. I was rather disappointed. I don't know that I can say it a whole lot better than this other Amazon reviewer did: "At one point in the book, Buzz Aldrin observes: `I kind of like David Letterman's quirky humor, it is like mine'. This pretty much sums up the annoyingly self-centered storytelling of the book. As others have pointed out, the space-program related parts are boilerplate, nothing new or interesting here. The rest, 85% of the book, is self-centered crank, crank, crank, descent into depression and alcoholism, page after page of self-quotations from speeches and pitches of the same old `Mars cycler' or go-to-space-lottery half baked ideas. For a 3-year old to misbehave and throw a tantrum in order to get attention is normal, and most get over it in time. Buzz Aldrin is still stomping his foot, `me, me, me'." Perhaps that is overstating the case a little bit but reading this autobiography, which begins with the countdown to Apollo 11 and carries on to the present day, primarily details life after NASA. The most interesting parts of the book, then, are the in the opening pages. After that the reader is forced to walk with him through the dissolution of his first marriage (and his second and the first twenty years of his third), affairs and girlfriends, drunkenness and clinical depression, and the rise and wane (and rise and wane) of celebrity. It was forty years that Aldrin stepped on the moon and it seems that since then he has been trying to find some return to glory. So far it has not happened. This is a pretty dismal tale and one that is not only quite boring but also poorly-written. I love to read biographies of heroes, but the more I read of Aldrin the more I see that he is no hero. Desolation described the moon, it described much of Aldrin's life (by his own admission), and it describes this book. You'll want to take a pass on this one (or at least wait for the paperback).
Showing reviews 21-25 of 38
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