Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, (Paperback)

from JBD1

A sort-of history of ballooning told in Holmes' trademark vignette style, and excellently so. Deeply enjoyable.

from Skybalon

An interesting history prose book written by a poet. Which sometimes doesn't work in favor the book as a whole, but in other places makes what could be uninteresting facts into something more interesting. The overall book does help capture some of the feeling and spirit of the early ballooning da...

from Jaylia3

I lost myself reading The Age of Wonder, the previous book by Richard Holmes, becoming completely caught up in its enticing panorama of the Romantic Age of Europe, when there were still far flung parts of the globe to explore, most of the chemical elements awaited discovery, and poets and scienti...

from gothamajp

Watching the recent movie Aeronauts reminded me that this volume had been sitting on the shelf for a few years. It turned out to be an excellent review of the first 150 years of manned flight in balloons, and highlighted the source of the many highly-fictionalized events from the movie. But it's ...

from themulhern

Fascinating, exciting, romantic, tragic. Excellently written, and includes fascinating bits about the literature of ballooning. Even Babar gets a mention.