Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura HillenbrandI wanted to listen to this audiobook in the past and I do read/listen to books based on the experiences of men and women who have been lost overseas during wartime but I saw the movie trailer based on this book and I shied away from the story. Several years later I downloaded the book so that I could listen to it, forgetting about the movie trailer I saw. I'm very glad I did listen to this book but it is on...

Laura Hillenbrand tells us the extraordinary story of Louis Zamperini, who participated in the Berlin Olympics, worked as an air corp, a bombardier in the Pacific after the Pearl Harbor attack, POW after the Japanese captured him. What I learned from this book 1)The importance of dignity in our life. This book shows us the importance of dignity in our life. The author says that maintaining dignity is the real coup that will help a person survive even in the toughest conditions. "Dign...

2012 F.A.B. Bookclub pick # I.❤️. F.A.B.

I’m in awe. 😲 I cannot imagine living through this amount of torture and torment. It’s truly heartbreaking, the catastrophes of war. 💔 This mans determination to survive was simply amazing. I can see why there was a movie made. Just... wow...

”If I knew I had to go through those experiences again,” he finally said, “I’d kill myself.” Louis Zamperini was a precocious child. He was always finding creative ways to get himself in trouble. He was desperate for any attention. Causing trouble is one way to get it, another way is to become really, really good at something. His brother Pete, a multi-sport star athlete, forced him into cross country and track in the hopes of keeping him out of trouble. The running, at first, felt like a pun...

I've just finished this awesome book, and have since washed the tears from my face. I can't hope to write a coherent review (there are so many good ones already written), so I'll just jot a few thoughts down:* This is why I love non-fiction.* Best book (by far) I've read this year.* Every positive cliche adjective should be applied to this story.* 5 stars isn't enough.* If it was fiction, you wouldn't believe it.* Go buy yourself a cloth hankie, 'cause a kleenex ain't gonna cut it by the last ch...

Hillenbrand has broken the unwritten code for Americans to downplay the wrongs of the Japanese during World War II (other than Pearl Harbor) in favor of focusing on the egregious acts of the Nazis. My education in World War II history has focused on the Holocaust and the unforgivable damage we did to Japan by unleashing the atomic bomb. I appreciate all the research Hillenbrand did to bring us the other side of the story.Louis Zamperini is my new hero. I loved his charisma and endurance, both of...

Wow am I in the minority. I absolutely loved Seabiscuit, so I expected great things from this one. However, where Seabiscuit focused narrowly on a small set of characters and events, this was more sprawling, bursting with a poorly-sketched cast of characters who, over time, became nearly indistinguishable. For most of the middle section, the book wore me down with its unrelenting catalogue of abuse and privation. On a related note, I wasn't crazy about the fact that the book endlessly described ...

Louie Zamperini was quite a character, wild, given to mayhem and thievery, but he straightened out enough to become a world-class runner, joining the US team in the Berlin Olympics. He continued his athletic career at USC, setting running records there, preparing for the next international competition. But the world would skip that event, leaving Louie adrift. He joined the military and washed out, but he was drafted back in after Pearl Harbor, as a bombardier. When Louie’s plane went down in th...

I’ve seen recently that negative commentary or reviews about this book invoke a kind of backlash normally reserved for non-conformists who critique the Bible, The Diary of Ann Frank, The Last Lecture, or any Oprah 'Book of the Month'. Well, brace yourself because here comes another one. This book is a poorly written, exaggerated, sensationalized version of a true story, an over-hyped pop history book more concerned with drumming home the message that the human spirit can be indestructible in the...

I was cleaning up after the wife and I had dinner last night and there was a small amount of green beans left. There weren’t nearly enough for another serving to make them worth saving so I dumped them in the sink, but just as I was about to turn on the garbage disposal, I realized that to the POWs described in Unbroken those few green beans I was about to mulch would have been a feast they would have risked torture and beatings for. I was disgusted with myself for the rest of the night. You kno...