Laura Hillenbrand is an engaging writer. The 487-page book reads quickly supplying the reader with more than a few laughs. It tells the life-story of Louie Zamperini who in today’s parlance would be termed hyper-active or suffering attention deficit disorder. His deliverance came in the form of running. His Olympic Medal hopes dashed when the 1940 Olympics were cancelled due to WW#2.
A bombardier on a dubious plane they are ordered up in spirals into the Pacific. What follows is an epic tale of survival and the indomitable human spirit that survives despite all odds. A pair of buddies survive ditching in the ocean; 2000-miles adrift surrounded by sharks in an ill-equipped leaking raft; solitary confinement and torture by sadistic, ignorant Japanese captors; and finally release at the end of the war. What follows is the trauma of return and the adulation of a public where everyone wants a piece of you. The nightmares and the panic attacks continue even while you put up the brave front everyone expects.
There are nearly 100 pages of footnotes at the end of the book; pictures are interspersed in the text. Although the book follows the life of Zamperini it includes the stories of many of his comrades and those of his captors. It also adds facts and figures along with not a little historical background.
A bombardier on a dubious plane they are ordered up in spirals into the Pacific. What follows is an epic tale of survival and the indomitable human spirit that survives despite all odds. A pair of buddies survive ditching in the ocean; 2000-miles adrift surrounded by sharks in an ill-equipped leaking raft; solitary confinement and torture by sadistic, ignorant Japanese captors; and finally release at the end of the war. What follows is the trauma of return and the adulation of a public where everyone wants a piece of you. The nightmares and the panic attacks continue even while you put up the brave front everyone expects.
There are nearly 100 pages of footnotes at the end of the book; pictures are interspersed in the text. Although the book follows the life of Zamperini it includes the stories of many of his comrades and those of his captors. It also adds facts and figures along with not a little historical background.
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