Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2010: From Laura
Hillenbrand, the bestselling author of Seabiscuit, comes
Unbroken, the inspiring true story of a man who lived through a
series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. In
evocative, immediate descriptions, Hillenbrand unfurls the story
of Louie Zamperini--a juvenile delinquent-turned-Olympic
runner-turned-Army hero. During a routine search mission over
the Pacific, Louie’s plane ced into the ocean, and what
happened to him over the next three years of his life is a story
that will keep you glued to the pages, eagerly awaiting the next
turn in the story and fearing it at the same time. You’ll cheer
for the man who somehow maintained his selfhood and humanity
despite the monumental degradations he suffered, and you’ll want
to share this book with everyone you know. --Juliet Disparte The
Story of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Eight years ago, an old man told me a story that took my breath
away. His name was Louie Zamperini, and from the day I first
spoke to him, his almost incomprehensibly dramatic life was my
obsession.
It was a horse--the subject of my first book, Seabiscuit: An
American Legend--who led me to Louie. As I researched the
Depression-era racehorse, I kept coming across stories about
Louie, a 1930s track star who endured an amazing odyssey in World
War II. I knew only a little about him then, but I couldn’t
shake him from my mind. After I finished Seabiscuit, I tracked
Louie down, called him and asked about his life. For the next
hour, he had me transfixed.
Growing up in California in the 1920s, Louie was a hellraiser,
stealing everything edible that he could carry, staging elaborate
pranks, getting in fistfights, and bedeviling the local .
But as a teenager, he emerged as one of the greatest runners
America had ever seen, competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics,
where he put on a sensational performance, crossed paths with
Hitler, and stole a German right off the Reich Chancellery.
He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics, and closing in on the
fabled four-minute mile, when World War II began. Louie joined
the Army Air Corps, becoming a bombardier. Stationed on Oahu, he
survived harrowing combat, including an epic air battle that
ended when his plane c-landed, some six hundred holes in its
fuselage and half the crew seriously wounded.
On a May afternoon in 1943, Louie took off on a search mission
for a lost plane. Somewhere over the Pacific, the engines on his
bomber failed. The plane plummeted into the sea, leaving Louie
and two other men stranded on a tiny raft. Drifting for weeks
and thousands of miles, they endured starvation and desperate
thirst, sharks that leapt aboard the raft, trying to drag them
off, a machine- attack from a Japanese bomber, and a typhoon
with waves some forty feet high. At last, they spotted an
island. As they rowed toward it, unbeknownst to them, a Japanese
boat was lurking nearby. Louie’s journey had only just
be.
That first conversation with Louie was a pivot point in my life.
Fascinated by his experiences, and the mystery of how a man could
overcome so much, I began a seven-year journey through his story.
I found it in diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs; in the
memories of his family and friends, fellow Olympians, former
American airmen and Japanese veterans; in forgotten papers in
archives as far-flung as Oslo and Canberra. Along the way, there
were staggering surprises, and Louie’s unlikely, inspiring story
came alive for me. It is a tale of daring, defiance,
persistence, ingenuity, and the ferocious will of a man who
refused to be broken.
The culmination of my journey is my new book, Unbroken: A World
War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. I hope you
are as spellbound by Louie’s life as I am.
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.
- Unbroken Large print Laura Hillenbrand.
- unbroken large print edition.
- Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand.
- Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > .