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What Members Thought
Wow... words fail me. This book was amazing, heartbreaking, moving, terrifying, inspirational, unbelievable... beautiful. I don't typically read non-fiction, but my book club selected it. I am so very glad they did.
My grandfather was a Navy Ace in WWII, and was shot down over Japanese waters and forced to wait for rescue in his tiny life raft. After almost 12 hours, he saw a ship on the horizon and used his signal mirror (which we still have), not knowing if it was an American or a Japanese ves ...more
My grandfather was a Navy Ace in WWII, and was shot down over Japanese waters and forced to wait for rescue in his tiny life raft. After almost 12 hours, he saw a ship on the horizon and used his signal mirror (which we still have), not knowing if it was an American or a Japanese ves ...more
Unbroken is an captivating, inspiring and unbelievable story. It’s almost like three incredible stories in one. Louis Zamperini was a runner who made his way to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. That section alone is a fascinating story. Then he joins the Air Force to fight in World War II. His plane crashes at sea and he manages to survive on a raft alone in shark-infested waters. He catches birds, fish and rain water in an amazing story. That section alone would make a great book by itself. He is then
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Story of Louis Saborini, an Olympic runner who seved in the US Air Force during World War II in the Pacific. It is hard to believe anyone could endure what he and several buddies did as POWs captured by the Japanese. Or that the Japanese could have been so brutal. These days we hear so much about PTSD in men serving in Vietnam and more recent wars, but not much about how the veterans of WWII coped. This book discusses that in the later chapters.
Hillenbrand is now on my list of authors that I both deeply wish would write faster and also hope that they never change their method because it leads to such consistently strong results. The depth of her research here is evident but never obvious, as she smoothly works her hard-won facts into a compelling narrative that few other authors of popular non-fiction have the skill to accomplish. Zamberini's story would be riveting even in much less capable hands, but in Hillebrand's it rises to somet
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Sep 27, 2011
Melissa
marked it as to-read
Dec 30, 2012
Megan
marked it as to-read
Sep 03, 2014
Laura (booksnob)
marked it as to-read
Jun 06, 2015
Mariana
marked it as to-read
