A great read

I received my February "12 in 12" book in January from my DH for my birthday (39th, if you're wondering . . . :-) I was so happy to get it, as the reviews have been enthusiastically positive. I first was made aware of the book on Tim Challies' blog and then DH saw a review in the WSJ; it sounded so good that we had a copy sent to my dad in December. He highly recommended it also.

The author is Lauren Hillenbrand and the book is Unbroken . . . A World War 11 Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. 473 pages, including the well-documented footnotes and index.

Unbroken is the true story of Louis Zamperini, a bombardier during the second world war. Part One covers his childhood and early 20s-he was a wild child, always misbehaving and causing trouble. In his teens he discovered he had a gift for running, fast. Very fast. This skill turned his life around and gave him a new focus-training for the Olympics.

The bulk of the book covers his training in the Army Air Force, the crash of his plane, weeks of drifting on the ocean and his years as a POW in several different Japanese camps. The author also writes about Zamperini's life post war, until present.

This book did not disappoint. Hillenbrand spent 7 years researching/interviewing and writing this book. It's extremely well-written with vivid descriptions and a compelling life story. Part of the narrative were almost too painful to read (the descriptions of the continual torture)and hard to comprehend. How can people be so unspeakably cruel?

" . . . the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain. Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live."

It's been said, "War is hell" and the events in the life of Louie Zamperini (and thousands of other soldiers) as a POW certainly show that to be true. (Although I'd have to say that ultimately what they experienced was "hell on earth"; hell after death will be unimaginely worse.)

I enjoyed this book so much, I'm planning to read Hillenbrand's first book, Seabiscuit.

For more info about the author, google "a sudden illness" to read about her extremely challenging health issues.