Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (2012-02-02)

My husband absolutely loves this book.

Loved the movie and book is even better

What a phenomenal book. Every one of the seven years' work that's behind it has been worthwhile. Hillenbrand crafts her story in such a way that it's immensely readable in spite of being filled with the grim horrors of accidental crashes of warplanes (more airmen killed in pre-combat accidents than in the combat itself); the abysmal awfulness of being adrift in a boat for several weeks with almost no food and little water; the appalling ill-treatment meted out to POWs in various Japanese prison camps; the way in which countless young men died in this war, vanishing without trace in the process.The brutal way in which Zamperini was treated by one particular Japanese man is almost unbelievable. How did he survive the constant barrage of beatings and degradation? You keep wondering just how he could possibly have done. But it was this resilience that kept him alive.Chapter after chapter has the most moving stuff in it, and when I finally reached the point where Billy Graham appeared, I had to stop reading because it was so emotional.Hillenbrand has the knack of providing the right amount of detail, so that we can see the places, and feel the pain. This is a mighty achievement.