Falling Upwards: How we Took to the Air

I've never been up in a hot air balloon, and should probably do something about that, because Richard Holmes makes ballooning sound exciting and exotic. Falling Upwards seamlessly threads through the history of ballooning from its early, daredevil days (including the horrific death of one of the sport's early stars), through its military applications in the American Civil War and in mid-19th Century France, and into the modern era where pressurized cabins allow balloons to fly high enough to circumnavigate the world. Along the way, there are foiled polar explorers, scientific experiments, mail delivery, and pleasant excursions gone horribly wrong.  The only thing that connects the stories is that they involve balloons, and Holmes's skillful depiction.