It seems like I must be one of the last persons to read Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand who also wrote Seabiscut. Our book club will be discussing it at our next meeting.
The book tells the story of Louis Zamperini an American Olympic runner whose plan crashed in the Pacific during the Second World War. He was captured by the Japanese and held as a POW until the end of the war. His post war life was also fascinating. I recommend the book.
Now I'm reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Mann is a good writer and this is written as popular book for a general audience. It is causing me to rethink much of what I though I knew about America before Columbus.
I'd appreciate comments about these books in the comment area of this blog.
1 comment:
Unbroken: Went to the St James Over 55 luncheon in April and a couple of gents (80+ yrs) were discussing this......they seemed surprised that a gal (me!) had read this book. This was also discussed on CBS Sunday Morning this Mem. Day weekend. Louie is still alive and gave one of his purple hearts to the author who has suffered 30 years from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He said his suffering was for a short time of his 95 yrs. and the author has suffered 30 years and is a "real" hero; and so he gave her a medal to prove it. Our book club gave it a 3.9 with a 4 being the highest rating. The most often commented: the author wrote this "in the first person" and so the reader felt like they were there. A lot of suffering, but not all the guards/citizens were inhumane. A truly inspirational story, with the strength of the human spirit shining forth. And, forgiveness was a major hurdle, once given, life went on to newness rather than dwelling on the bad - the good triumphs!
Post a Comment