Pete says "I couldn't put the damn thing down".

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.

Pete says:

"Cats, they say, have nine lives. But what then to make of Louis Zamperini? Here is a man who surely has had many more lives than nine. He was a juvenile delinquent, an Olympic track star, an Air Core officer, a castaway, a prisoner of war, a husband and father, a failed businessman, a raging alcoholic, and finally a man of faith and charity. And, for a few years in between, a man officially declared dead.

Certainly he should have died after his airplane crashed into the Pacific. He should have died while stranded on a life raft in the middle of the ocean with no food or water. He should have died from shark attacks or from his harrowing experiences in the hands of sadistic prison guards during his years as a POW. However, this is not just the story of Louis Zamperini. It is also the story of the young men and women he served with, the families back home, and even the enemy, many who were utterly cruel but some others described as kind hearted and fair.

Most interesting to me was the description of the war's end. What happens to a POW when
in one moment you're a captive and the next you're free to go? Go where exactly? These were men who once weighed 170 pounds and who now weighed 100 pounds. And even if their
bodies survived, the nightmares and flashbacks were equally horrendous.

I lost many hours of sleep during this read because I couldn't put the damn thing down. What a story! You won't soon forget Louis and the soldiers who did make it home, and you won't soon forget those who did not. Unbelievable. Unforgettable. Unbroken."