Please contact Marta Wiggins at mwiggins@l ibrary.lacounty.gov for your link to join.
\nEach week we read and d iscuss 1/4 of the book. \; Please see the weekly discussion breakdown below. \;
\nWeek 1: \; December 9 : Pages 3 - 79: \; Dec ember 29\, 1984 \;
\nWeek 2: \; December 16: \; Pages 80 - 161 --Fall 1980 - December 29\, 1984
\nWeek 3: \; December 23 : Pages 162 - 252- Fall 1980 - Fall 1983
\nWeek 4: \; December 3 0: Pages 253 - End of book: \; Spring &\; Summer 1984 - December 29 \, 1984
\nJoan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long
as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved\, Joan is content with her li
fe as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt
to her precocious niece\, Frances. That is\, until she comes across an adv
ertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA's space shuttle
program. Suddenly\, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space
. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980\,
Joan begins training at Houston's Johnson Space Center\, alongside an exce
ptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scienti
st John Griffin\, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are high
est\; mission specialist Lydia Danes\, who has worked too hard to play nic
e\; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald\, who is navigating her own secrets\; and
Vanessa Ford\, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer\, who ca
n fix any engine and fly any plane. As the new astronauts become unlikely
friends and prepare for their first flights\, Joan finds a passion and a l
ove she never imagined. In this new light\, Joan begins to question everyt
hing she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Then
\, in December of 1984\, on mission STS-LR9\, it all changes in an instant
.