a review

I literally just finished reading Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken. Excellent stuff, even if I'm more than a year behind the publishing date. A note up front: It's funny how e-readers draw out books. Mine turned the already lengthy bound version (496 pages) into 947 e-pages, including the preface and epilogue. Frankly, I feel doubly proud of myself, having flicked my finger across twice as many pages as hard copy readers did. Talk about endurance. The content and writing carried me through to the end quite quickly, though, and it was an incredibly worthwhile read. It not only focuses on the Pacific arena in WWII, which I personally believe is often overlooked in favor of the European one, it literally drills down to the quotidian lives of actual soldiers, with their specific roles, ailments, memories, which are, usually necessarily, generalized and summed up in history textbooks. Upon reading Laura Hillenbrand's acknowledgements and bio, I was prompted to Google her referenced illness and learned that she has suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome since college. For a book that clearly was researched meticulously and basically is an enormous string of facts and figures layered atop Louie Zamperini's life, it's striking that an author who is home-bound had the energy to do it all. Here's another stat I find bewildering and a testament to its reach and relevance: Unbroken has 2,049 Amazon reviews and counting. Well-deserved, in my book. And last but not least, Louie Zamperini is one precious old man. He'll probably get himself into trouble in Heaven for playfully pilfering angels' wings but it won't really matter because he's Louie Zamperini.