Light This Candle by Neal Thompson (2004, Hardcover)

Inexplicably, this is the only biography available about Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut. Fortunately, it's an excellent one, well researched and well written. The author obviously delved deeply into Shepard's past and interviewed many of Shepard's past associates in the Navy and NASA, and the personal remembrances from those friends and coworkers that Thompson weaves into the story really bring it to life.

This is no hero-worshipping puff piece either; Thompson does not hesitate to examine Shepard's rougher edges (no one who knew him would call him a warm person, and his marital infidelities were well-known even at the time) but the complex character that emerges seems all the richer for our view of both sides. Shepard is revealed as the fiercely competitive and driven man who demended the very best of himself and those around him, who lived his life to the fullest, and set an example for American manhood in the '60s that endures to this day.

I enthusiastically recommend this biography to anyone interested in Shepard or the fascinating era in which he lived.