Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, Totally Not My Kind of Book, Totally Awesome

     War story?  Non-fiction? Centered on a soldier?  Planes? How they fly?  Billy Graham?  In a hundred years, no one who knows me would guess I'd pick this book,  actually finish it, and read many parts to my husband as I was too impressed to silently absorb the information and experiences and move on.  I'm sure being written by a female author is the only thing that hinted to me that I might like this book.  Louis Zamperini was an Olympic runner preparing for the Berlin Games.  He was a scamp, a troubled youth, until competitive running grabbed his interest.  Then the war took him on a path of trials I'd have never survived. As soon as non-fiction words about planes and their characteristics float before my eyes I tune out, skip over them.  Not this time.  I actually could tell by their names, what possibilities were ahead.  If it came up in a Trivia game,  I would never have come close to guessing the combat to non-combat ratio of plane losses in WWII.  
      On a raft in the ocean after his plane went down, surviving unimaginable ordeals, just to get "saved" by the Japanese.  Then years in POW camps, picked for vicious and repeated beatings because he WAS a famous runner.  Beaten unconscious, starved, ill...how could he survive and live a normal life?  We hear so much about post stress syndromes from more recent wars, but I can't recall ever hearing about former soldiers suffering from it when I was growing up, post WWII.  I had friends whose fathers served, but war-caused mental problems were NEVER mentioned.  It was there. Overwhelmingly.  
     I rate this a 9+ out of 10.  Get this one on your reading list, guy and gals.  It is probably one of 5 books I've read, out of 1850+, that I would recommend highly for the guys!  Those of you in book clubs, put it on your reading list.