I've had this idea for a while about suggesting a 'Reviews' or perhaps 'Resources' subforum, and for my contribution to it I'd like to recommend this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Moonlandings-An-Eyewitness-Account/dp/052103535XWhich I picked up 2nd hand for considerably less than Amazon quote there.
The author was a space and aviation correspondent for the BBC during the space race and he manages to combine three things into one book. Firstly, it's a potted autobiography (he has a more comprehensive one as well), second, it's a history of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes, and finally it's a description of what it was like to watch those missions from the perspective of a journalist and what they had to go through to get a story.
His position as a journalist provides an insight that is invaluable for those engaged in defending Apollo, as during his always well written prose he covers a lot of aspects that are not usually given in standard coffee table books and provide support for the openness of it all. I found his account of the recovery of Apollo 11, the quarantine procedures and sample analysis very informative.
There are some technical and historical inaccuracies that will be irksome (he recalls Apollo 12's computers as being entirely responsible for resolving the post-lightning strike problems without mentioning 'try SCE to AUX'), but these are minor irritations in what is otherwise a very readable, non-technical account of what went on given from a unique perspective.
