Forty years ago, Life magazine gave Norman Mailer a plum assignment: writing essays to accompany the magazine's gorgeous photos of the moon landing. Now Taschen is selling a $1,000 coffee table book collecting that historic work, an ego-boosting price-tag that Mailer would have appreciated.

The Book Beast explores the literally weighty book, entitled "Norman Mailer, Moonfire." For the cash-strapped literary types in the audience, the Harry Ransom Center gave a virtual peek at Mailer's notes and research for the book.

Check it out: "Moonfire is a gloriously imposing tome, large enough to require a degree of exertion just to flip it over. Inside, in addition to a reproduction of Mailer's book, are scans of his original manuscript, and photographs that, decades after that Space Age began to feel dated, still boggle the mind. Taschen will print only 1,969 copies of the book--each will be signed by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and the final 12 will contain a chip of extremely rare moon meteorite."