'Rocket Men' is a Chicago writer's book about Apollo 8 — and a timely work about astronauts

"Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon" by Rob Kurson; Random House (384 pages, $28)

___

Over the last few months, astronauts have entered my orbit with surprising frequency.

This has been more than a bit unusual, since there have been only 833 of them, men and women, so I would have been more likely to bump into a Nobel Prize winner (of which there have been 892) or a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient (3,518).

In April came Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, not in the flesh but jumping off the pages of a spectacular new book, "Rocket