Yaroslav Golovanov was born in 1932 into an acting family. In 1956 he graduated from the rocket department of the Moscow Higher Technical University. Bauman and worked for two years at a research institute, whose scientific director was academician M. V. Keldysh, then for more than 40 years at the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. Main area of interest: history of science and astronautics. Author of more than 20 scientific, fiction and prose books, published in 25 languages. The three-volume “Notes of Your Contemporary” covers almost half a century of the author’s life and is, perhaps, the most popular work of Yaroslav Golovanov for the widest range of readers, since it contains everything - from anecdotes to portraits of celebrities, from space secrets to caustic criticism of the morals of our days. In the third volume, Yaroslav Golovanov is already a mature, experienced journalist, but he is still interested in the most diverse and unexpected things. Here are calculations of the growth rate of nails, adventures on the Solovetsky Islands, observations of one’s own children, the completion of travel in the Non-Black Earth Region, a business trip to Afghanistan, the final work on the main book - “Korolev. Facts and myths", life in Chicago, a trip to Baikonur after 22 years, Germany, Italy, France, Luxembourg, "Arzamas-16" and academician Khariton, criticism of the grimaces of the "perestroika" years and reflections on life and death on the eve of his 70th birthday .