I'd never read any Jules Verne, but like almost anyone else on the planet, I'm familiar with his works, or at least the remakes of his books into movies. Something inspired me to finally decided to read From the Earth to the Moon. It was only after I finished the 141 pages of the first book, did I realize there was a second book in my version.

Both books were very interesting, although reading the book 140 years after it was written provided some humor which certainly not there when it was first penned. Verne also explains some truths of the human-animal, that being that it is not happy without a war somewhere to feed the "military-industrial complex, as we call it today.

I was also intrigued by the "science" Verne includes. I was tempted, but resisted, to find the state of the understanding of the nature of space. Keep in mind, this was written before the US Civil war. It was only five years after the laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. Every time I read stories about history, I'm amazed.

There are technical problems that are mentioned, and solutions implemented that would never have worked. Anyway, the books are full of examples of problems and incidents that are interesting to imagine with our 'more advanced' understandings.

I think this is a book well worth reading.