Type of bind: Hardcover
EAN num: 9780060101800
ISBN number: 0060101806
Label: Harper & Row Publishing houses
Manufacturer: Harper & Row Publishing houses
Page Count: 178
Printing Date: 1972-09
Publishing house: Harper & Row Publishing houses
Sale Popularity Level: 1417212
Studio: Harper & Row Publishing houses
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A man alone in the sky has a chance to touch the stars. But as Richard Bach, flying a lone jet across Europe, reaches for the eternal, he must also confront the fear and danger that shadow the unknown.
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Rated by buyers 
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Among pilots, Stranger To The Ground is almost universally acclaimed as the author's best. Bach captures the lonely essence of flying complex aircraft in difficult weather. The author not only has the ability to capture the essence of flight but also to bring it to the page.
Like Clancey's Hunt For Red October, this very first book has a more polished and carefully nurtured feel. This is not to say that his later books are not wonderful, but rather that this is a classic.
The book is a reminder of the early days of the Kennedy administration as the superpowers danced on the brink of nuclear war. In order to discourage any Russian thrust into Western Europe Kennedy dispatched additional Air Force fighter groups into some of the toughest flying condiditons in any part of the world that people care to fight over. By today's standards these were fast but primitive flying machines which achieved speed by burning fuel. When the fuel was gone there were no tankers so it was land or crash.
The enduring appeal of this book is shown in the dwindling number of hardbacks on the market at increasing prices. I have read it three times over the years and found increased enjoyment from each.
Highly recommended.
Rated by buyers -
I read this book several times when I was a USAF pilot training student in the late 80's. The fears and thoughts and surprisingly the cockpit instruments were similar. Bach captured all the emotions pilots seek to subdue and presented it in a sober and forthright book. Passages still come back to me flying over the places he mentions. What a great book.
Rated by buyers -
This book is a very haunting allegory about Richard Bach's ordeal with his own mortality. Deals with facing death, the great unknown, and all the fears and anxieties that go along with topics we prefer not to think about. Reading it will open your heart and touch your soul, and stay with you long after the book is finished.
Arlene Millman
author of BOOMERANG - A MIRACLE TRILOGY
Rated by buyers -
In 1961 the world was about to go to war over a simple, but deadly game of nuclear bluff. The Russians were about to sign a seperate peace treaty with East Germany. So? Well, since the U.S., Brits, France and the Russians were all allies aftrer WWII, they could not unilaterally do that! In the new cold war era however, the Russians, trying to secure their idiological communist empire, perhaps as a buffer to any future invasions from the West, had taken their sector of Berlin...and East Germany, and made it their own...and to prove it they were going to sign a seperate peace without their allies. So, we called their bluff...and within 24 days of notification in the late summer of 1961, thousands of Guardsmen and allied military were activated and put muzzle to muzzle with the Russians and other Easter Block countries with a deadline of January 1, 1962 for the Russians to blink or unleash the dogs of war. Luckily for all of us, they blinked. I was with the 113th TFS from Indiana that flew the Atlantic in F-84Fs and opened Chambley Field in France. We flew the same skies, missions, and aircraft and lousey weather as Richard. We had mixed emotions about the opportunity to fly and test our aircraft for real, but apprehension about leaving our civilian jobs, homes and families to face an potential enemy that only a few years before had been our ally. We all worried through the cold winter night before the deadline, with a one way flight plan and realization that there would be no field left for us to return to if the baloon went up...and, perhaps no world as we knew it either. I think the world learned a lesson from that experience...more need to read about it...and we must never forget. Richard's detailed and flowing discription of the aircraft, arena, bases, missions, and joy of flight stimulating and nostalgic. Whenever I want to relive that little known and appreciated bookmark in history and the personal feeling of the experience, I reread Stranger...it is like an old friend...it also introduced me to a life of adventure, philosophy, mysticism and awe as a fan of this unique writer...he was, and still is an inspiration for my continuing journey of understanding of life, relationships, self examination and love of aviation. He is every-airman, but relates life better than any-man. Bravo Bach!
Rated by buyers -
Richard Bach's very first book came to my attention when it was reviewed in the WALL STREET JOURNAL at very first publication. I re-read it often. As a pilot with time in current fighters, I was stunned by the clarity and power of his depictions of flight. But one need not be a pilot to enjoy this work because it always remains 'grounded' (in the sense of structure and ideas, not literally).
STRANGER got me for a core reason not often discussed with respect to flying; the book meets this criterion resoundingly: it is totally honest. Why does this matter? Because flying, especially complex modern airplanes (the F-84F is not an easy airplane), is fundamentally an honest trade. Make a mistake or be unlucky and you may die suddenly.
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