Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
by Laura Hillenbrand
(496 pages)
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the
Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a
slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face
appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier,
who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began
one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
The
lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning
and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and
fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his
defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried
him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.
But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a
journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into
the unknown.
Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open
ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy
aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of
endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering
with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate,
whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of
his will.
In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit.
Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity,
Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and
spirit.
(From Amazon.com)
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