Five Star Book!

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Juvenile delinquent, practical joker, track star, Olympic runner, WWII bombardier, POW, survivor. . . these are all ways to identify Louis Zamperini, the subject of Laura Hillenbrand's fascinating biography.  I was riveted to this story.  As a child,  Zamperini was a menace.  He stole food from neighbors, played practical jokes, and had a reputation for wild living, even before the age of 10.  In adolescence he discovered running and soon set world records for the mile.  He attended the 1936 Olympics as part of the US track team, and trained hard for the 1940 Helsinki Games.  Unfortunately WWII broke out and his dream of Olympic gold was dashed.  He joined the army and became a bombardier, sent to fight in the Pacific theater.  On one of his mission, his plane crashed into the ocean.  He and 2 others were the only men to survive the crash, and for 46 days, Louis fought off sharks, subsisted on albatross and pilot fish caught with hooks made from the bird bones and his hands, and on rain water.  Finally reaching land, Zamperini was captured by the Japanese, spending the rest of the war as a POW.  The story of how he (and others) managed to physically survive the torture and abuse is both horrific and inspirational.  After liberation and repatriation, Zamperini struggles with what we now know as post-traumatic stress syndrome, before he eventually finds the peace he longs for.


Like many other readers, I had a hard time putting this book down.  Hillenbrand's narrative is compelling and her research is outstanding.


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A Biography This Time!

Hero of the Pacific: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone by James Brady

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I picked up this book at the library because I've been watching The Pacific on HBO.  I was interested in finding out more John Basilone, one of the Marines about whom the Tom Hanks' series is centered.
I found the book confusing to read.  The author jumped around in the timeline, and I wasn't always clear as to who he was quoting.  I felt that the author's main purpose of the book was to sift through a lot of conflicting information about John Basilone rather than to tell his story.   Some things I did take away from the book:   John Basilone was a skilled soldier and Marine; he fought heroically, and died heroically.  The details are confusing which seems to make sense to me.  Although I have never been in battle, I can't imagine it to be anything other than horrible and confusing.  I also believe that his other biographers told his story as they believed it to have happened, out of love and admiration, not out of any other motive.  Since Basilone apparently never wrote about his experiences, and since all of his personal narrative was part of the War Bonds tour (with government oversight!), there is little primary source.  What I found fascinating is that I lived in Bridgewater Township, NJ during from 1963-1970, and I attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School (West).  Raritan was "next door". We visited Duke Island Park often, shopped at the Acme on the Somerville Circle, and I was familiar with many of the Raritan locations mentioned in the book.   I never heard of John Basilone.    Weird.

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