I read way more fiction than nonfiction. But I also belong to an all-men's book group that encourages me to read things I never usually would if left to my own devices. For example, I'm the least likely person to ever climb a mountain, but I loved Jon Krakauer's
Into Thin Air. I get seasick just by looking at a body of water, but I found my sea legs reading Patrick O' Brian's
Master and Commander. And stories of war make me queasy--but I was captivated utterly by Laura Hillenbrand's storytelling in
Unbroken.
Unbroken tells the story of
Louie Zamperini, a young miscreant who discovered his gift of running and ran well enough to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Berlin. His sights were set on the 1940 games in Tokyo, but of course those games were not to be.
Instead, Zamperini became a gunner on a B-24 bomber. So many airmen died in those "flying coffins," and Louie was nearly one of them. On a search-and-rescue mission, his own plane ditched into the Pacific, killing all but three of those on board.
