Books: I Have Left the World

THE LONELY SKY (316 pp.)—William Bridgeman and Jacqueline Hazard—Holt ($3.95).

Test Pilot William Barton Bridgeman, 38, is the first flyer to write a book telling how it feels to ride a rocket aimed at space and fight the sky at 1,200 miles an hour. In his autobiography Pilot Bridgeman (TIME, April 27, 1953) describes a three-year skirmish in the U.S. campaign against the unknowns of speed and space as a personal battle. The result: one of the year's most fascinating adventure stories.

The rocket ship which Bridgeman jockeyed to speed and altitude records (79,494...