Why Fly

Seeking Awe, Healing, and Our True Selves in the Sky

Why Fly

Seeking Awe, Healing, and Our True Selves in the Sky

Hardback ~~$27.99~~ $13.99 Ebook (Epub & Mobi) ~~$19.59~~ $9.79 Audiobook ~~$22.00~~ $11.00

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Description

From the New York Times bestselling author Caroline Paul, a thrilling, gravity-defying book that takes us skyward to explore the art of aeronautics-and the depths of the human heart.

Flying has long represented the beautiful, high-stakes human drive to invent, to explore, to experience. Caroline Paul has known this since becoming a pilot at twenty years old. Now she's in her fifties, and her long-term marriage is dissolving beneath her. She begins to fly a gyrocopter. Isn't it easier to learn a landing than a human heart?

As Paul examines the descent of love through the ascent of flight, she turns her eye to the history, the physics, and the deep impact of flying on others. From the brave Night Witches who flew biplanes against the Nazis, to the ultralight pilots who believe they can save endangered birds by becoming one of the flock, to the many people afraid to step onto a passenger plane, Why Fly examines the ways flight, like love, confounds and yet transforms us. Often we soar. But we also crash land. Still, we want to fly. Why?

Product details

Published	Feb 24 2026
Format	Audiobook
Duration	0 hours and 10 minutes
ISBN	9781639735013
Imprint	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Caroline Paul has the rare ability to punch a hole between hilarious, brisk pilot-speak and breathless wonder, with more than a little Mary Oliver to her style . . . Alongside more practical concerns, like preflight checklists and simulated emergencies, she captures the sublime view, the freedom of doing the impossible and the loneliness and tenderness of leaving the Earth just so you have a reason to come back home . . .

BookPage
If you fear flying, pry your fingernails off the armrests, take a deep breath, and head to the shelves. 'Why Fly' might help you change your mind. It's not just that author Caroline Paul enjoys being airborne. It's not that she's honest in her explanations of being in love and being aloft. It's the meditative aura you'll get as you're reading this book that makes it so appealing...

Terri Schlichenmeyer, OutSF
Paul discusses the physics of flight; the difficulties that make takeoff and landing precarious; navigation strategies; and techniques pilots use for not getting lost, such as dead reckoning, pilotage, and, helpfully, GPS . . . Though the memoir is threaded with a sense of loss, Paul has a light touch in contriving metaphors from flying. An engaging memoir of exhilaration and sadness.

Kirkus Reviews
Lifelong pilot Paul muses on her love of aviation in this meditative memoir... There is a great deal here about the romance of flight, making it a title that will appeal more naturally to those less concerned with the technical side of things and more intrigued with the idea of flying. Nonpilots will especially enjoy the opportunity to imaginatively sit alongside the pilot as she challenges herself to face her fears and not look back from life's difficulties.

Booklist
Caroline Paul writes about flying with exuberance and joy. In Why Fly she makes the case for seeking transcendent adventure in the face of earthbound troubles.

Becky Aikman, author of SPITFIRES: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II
Caroline Paul has long been my North Star for what it is to be an adventurer in the world. I'd follow her anywhere.

Bonnie Tsui, author of WHY WE SWIM