Chris Hadfield Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Kate Fillion Picture Books

Colonel Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut and author who has accomplished a lot in his career. He has flown three space missions, performed two spacewalks, built two space stations, crewed Soyuz and the Shuttle, and was commander of the International Space station for half a year.

The heavily decorated astronaut used to work as the director of operations for NASA, pilot and engineer who has won many awards over the years. Some of his most prestigious include the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Cross and the Order of Canada.

The US Navy and US Air Force named him Top Test Pilot and he was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in Canada. As an international bestselling writer, he is best known as the author of “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth.” He has also recently dabbled in fiction when he wrote a thriller set in space titled “The Apollo Murders.”

He has also released “Space Sessions” the musical album and is a TED speaker with more than 11 million views for his talk “What I Learned Going Blind in Space.” He is also the host and co-creator of “Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes?” A critically acclaimed BBC series.

Colonel Chris Austin Hadfield was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1959 and spent his childhood on a corn farm near Toronto. He saw the first moon landing on TV when she was nine and from then on dreamed of one day becoming an astronaut.

Unfortunately, Canada lacked an astronaut program at the time but he still spent much of his time learning mechanics on old cars and tractors, and flying with his brothers and his father who used to be an airline pilot.

As a thirteen year old, he got involved with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets and by the time he was 15, he earned glider pilot scholarship and then a year later a powered pilot scholarship. Soon after graduating from high school, he bummed around Europe for half a year working as a penniless ski instructor.
In 1978, Hadfield joined the Armed Forces of Canada and graduated from military college with a bachelors in mechanical engineering in 1982. After graduating as a fighter pilot, he flew for North American Aerospace Defence Command before he moved to Maryland to fly fighter jets and do test pilot training.
He also went to the University of Tennessee from where he got his aviation systems masters degree in 1992.

By the time the 90s came around, Christ Hadfield had flown more than 70 different types of planes and made a reputation for himself in both the United States and Canada. With Canada raring to go with a new astronaut program, he became one of the very few lucky ones chosen to be in the team of four Canadian astronauts.
The Canadian Space Agency sent him to the Houston, Texas based Johnson Space Agency, where he soon became an integral member of both the US and Canadian space programs. Over the following twenty years, he wore different hats as an astronaut.

He once served as the voice of mission control communicating with astronauts in space, director of operations for NASA and support for shuttle launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In 2006, he worked from the International Space Station as chief of operations at the Johnson Space Center.

He would attain international fame for his tweets from space and mind blowing images he took while he was an astronaut and commander of the International Space Station.

“An Astronaut’s Guide to Life” by Colonel Chris Hadfield is the story of a man who has spent more than 4,000 hours in space and trained as an astronaut for several decades.

During this time, he had to dispose of a live snake while in the cockpit of a plane, broke into a space station with a Swiss army knife and was temporarily blinded hanging on to the outside of an orbiting spacecraft.

The secret to his survival and success is the highly non-traditional philosophy of preparing for the worst and enjoying every moment of it which he learned at NASA. In this work, he takes his readers into the many years of space exploration and training to show that what often seems impossible is actually possible.
Through entertaining and eye opening stories full of the calm, measured responses mandated by crises, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the adrenaline of launch, he explains that traditional wisdom can prevent one from attaining happiness and achievement.

He shows how his education has equipped him with some counterintuitive lessons such as always sweat the small stuff, do care what others think and the importance of not visualizing success.

Colonel Chris Hadfield’s work “The Darkest Dark” is a children’s picture book that he co wrote with Kate Fillion and Chris Gadfield with Terry and Eric Fan doing the illustrations. It opens to a boy named Chris who is afraid of the dark, until he sees a moon landing and is moved by the beauty of space.
It makes use of informative, straightforward and simplistic text as Fillion and Hadfield tell the story of a boy who is in love with space but is afraid of his room when the lights are turned out. Backmatter includes illustrated mementos, photographs, a biography and an inspiring message from Hadfield.
The Fan Brothers effortlessly switch between documentary images and fantasy elements. Set in 1969, it has a rather straightforward premise. Chris is told that he will not be allowed to go watch the moon landing if he will not stay in his bed.

The moon landing is a mind boggling event but Chris is even more fascinated by the darkness of space. The darkness of space offers hope away from the ordinary darkness of his bedroom.

“You Are Here” by Colonel Chris Hadfield offers a big picture of the Earth from an astronaut’s perspective. Writing to the millions of people that followed his tweets from the International Space Station, he reenacts those beautiful moments in space in this work.

He shared tons of photos when he was at the space station but many missed the full meaning and beauty of them. In this work, he shares many photographs that he never did before to provide an insightful and fresh look at our planet.

Hadfield sees importance and stanishing detail in the images because of his in-depth knowledge of meteorology, geography and geology that allow him to explore the many mysteries in the images.

Featuring some of his favorite images, he divides this work by continent and makes a representation of an ideal orbit of the International Space Station. The planetary photo tour is thought provoking, playful, surprising and visually delightful. It is a beautiful and breathtaking perspective on the many wonders of the world.