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Books

John Paul Stapp: the fastest man on earth, who saved millions

The hero of Craig Ryan’s biography not only pioneered manned space flight but also the compulsory use of seatbelts, saving more lives than anyone in history

14 November 2015

9:00 AM

14 November 2015

9:00 AM

Sonic Wind: The Story of John Paul Stapp and How a Renegade Doctor Became the Fastest Man on Earth Craig Ryan

Liveright, pp.432, £17.99, ISBN: 9780871406774

There’s a moment in Craig Ryan’s spectacular biography of John Paul Stapp — the maverick American Air Force doctor who, in the 1950s, became the fastest man on earth — where the reader falls inexorably in love with Ryan’s subject. It’s on page 17, when Stapp encounters what his Baptist missionary father had taught his sons to prepare for: ‘The epiphany that would illuminate the nature of their calling.

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