Colonel Chris Hadfield spent decades training to be an astronaut and has now logged almost 4000 hours in space. There have been some strange times through his journey, such as when using only his Swiss army knife he broke into a space station, disposed of a live snake while at the controls of a plane and was temporarily blinded whilst he was clinging to the outside of an orbiting space craft. The secret of Colonel Hadfield’s success, and his survival, is the unconventional philosophy which he learned from NASA : “prepare for the worst and enjoy every moment of it”. In An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth ($28) Col. Hadfield takes us on the kind of journey most of us only dream about; training to be an astronaut, exploring space and learning how the impossible can be made possible. One of the best books you will ever read, period.
In Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed ($41), the photographer esteemed Frederic Chaubin reveals ninety buildings located in fourteen former Soviet Republics that display what could be considered as the 4th age of Soviet architecture. These buildings reveal an unexpected rejuvenation of imagination, an unknown and unexpected burgeoning that took place in the two decades between 1970 […]