Unbroken

Lauren Hillenbrand

Wow! The story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner in the 30's from Southern California who ends up in the pacific theater of WWII as a bombardier and as a POW in Japan. The story covers his pre-war life, his journey adrift in the Pacific for a couple months (yes, a couple), eventual capture and two years in POW camp, and finally his life after camp. Every component of his life is astounding and so crazy that you think it is made up. Hillenbrand does an excellent job of providing the details needed to visualize the craziness of every situation, as well as to suggest the calm & matter-of-fact nature of how Zamperini deals with what is thrown at him. I particularly appreciate that the book doesn't end with rescue, but lets us know about the difficulties and successes of life after POW. Zamperini is a particularly charismatic subject to highlight this part of WWII, but I think he is in many ways just a common soldier who survived.

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