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75 of 80 found the following review helpful:
 Fantastic book, but Kindle edition riddled with errors Aug 19, 2009
By Phoenix Rising
I've owned "The Right Stuff" for over thirty years in print form. I downloaded the Kindle version from Amazon to take with me on business trips.
To my disgust, the Kindle edition is abysmal - clearly, Amazon or whoever came up with it ran the print edition through a character-recognition software program and utterly failed to copy-edit it afterwards. The number of errors is alarming, and it is only because I've read the print version so many times that I was able to recognize what some of the errors meant in the text.
It's a shame, because this book is a fine, fine book and one of my all-time favorites. Shame on Amazon or the publisher or both for charging $10.00 for a flawed, poorly-edited copy.
32 of 33 found the following review helpful:
 Read the book, then go fly a jet Jan 23, 2000
By B
In the early '80s, I was to graduate from school and got interested in flying for the US Navy. My mother sent a copy of T. Wolfe's book hoping to sway my dangerous intent and take a 'real' job. WRONG. About 9 months later I was soloing over Corpus Christi Bay and on my way to flying Navy jets. Wolfe has written an epic that spans from the early days of flight test through the beginning of the US manned space program. It will increase the heart rate of aviators, aviation buffs and armchair pilots/astornauts. I highly recommend that anyone remotely interested in aviation/space read this book. While it may not be accurate to the smallest detail, the overall scope and feel for a era gone by can never be or has ever been captured in the history books. Regarding Gus Grissom, new facts are coming to light that will clear his reputation. Wolfe does hammer Gus in the book about what was known at the time Wolfe wrote "The Right Stuff". However, all the research and reading that I have done, Gus was probably the smartest engineer and best test pilot of the M-7 astronauts . He had a reputation of being a real nuts and bolts engineer and a hard nose pilot. He could handle any situation while flying experitmental aircraft or on the ground discussing craft/engine design with NASA's engineers. If any one has ever seen the old NASA films of the Apollo program, when Gus is doing the radio tests on that fateful day, he really gives the engineers hell from the capsule owing to poor communication on the radios "Jesus Christ, we can't talk between three building, how the hell are we going to talk on the moon." Classic Gus. Ironically, when Apollo One caught fire moments later, the hatch was redesigned not to repeat the same incident that happened to Gus in Liberty Bell 7 - and Gus, Chaffee and White paid the ultimate price. Read this book. It is one of the best books I have ever read and was a real inspiration during my Navy days and beyond. Bondo
25 of 26 found the following review helpful:
Great book, KINDLE version FULL OF ERRORS Feb 14, 2010
By Ranty
Great book, completely flubbed by Amazon. Is it so hard to run a spell check on a Kindle manuscript before publishing it? This book is filled with ridiculous OCR screwups: letters cl being turned into a nonsensical d, for instance. And there are a lot of them. Amazon needs to fix this book and send us all an updated version that doesn't hurt our eyes or our brains.
21 of 23 found the following review helpful:
An absolute classic Jul 22, 2000
By Brian D. Rubendall
As good as "The Right Stuff" is as a movie, the book is even better. Thomas Wolfe's account of post war American test pilots and the first American astronauts is frank, amusing, moving and ultimately triumphant. Wolfe humanzies the cocky heroes that made America's space program successful. He punctures the myths that have grown up around such legendary men as Chuck Yeager, John Glenn and Alan Shepard and portrays them honestly, warts and all. The test pilot sequences and the onerous astronaut training are the best parts, but the whole book is utterly fascinating. "The Right Stuff" may very well be the best aviation story ever written.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
The Right Book Apr 23, 2006
By jjlaw
"jjlaw"
What Wolfe always does well is understand his characters motivations. Al Shephard - Smilin' Al of the Cape/Icy Commander - , Chuck Yeager, John Glenn "the flying monk" - are all sliced and diced by Wolfe's samurai sharp, if not unsympathetic, sword. A brilliant work on patriotism, heroism and American masculinity, with none of the dull twaddle that characterises Wolfe's later works (particularly Man in Full).
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