expanding my book reading horizons

my good friend jewel and i needed to spice up our social circle so we started a book club.  we invited a bunch of our buddies to read and discuss books written both recently and of yesteryear.  at our discussion last month we chose a book called unbroken by laura hillenbrand based on the recommendation of one of our comrades.  the summary said it was a story about a man who competed as an Olympic athlete in the mid and late 30s then served in the army air corps during world war II.

i have never read or even picked up in a book store or library a book that dealt with the subject matter of war.  it just wasn't my style.  but i'm a team player as they say so i dutifully purchased the book through the iBookstore.  kinda held out until about 10 days left before the date of our discussion.  started to read and LITTERLY. COULDN'T. PUT. MY. IPAD. THAT. HAD. THE. BOOK. DOWN.  lost a lot of sleep over the last 10 nights.

the story was amazing!  and as my friend said during the discussion last night, if i didn't know it was a real story i would have thought the events detailed in the book were straight from someone's imagination.  even reading about all of the atrocities that happened to louie, i was completely inspired by his determination and ability to retain as much humanity as possible while being physically destroyed and stripped of his humanity.

i would urge everyone to read this book.  not only is it well written by laura hillenbrand (author of seabiscuit) but it is a page turner because you want to know what happens to louie.  you care about him and his comrades.  you won't be sorry if you choose to dive into the story of this courageous man from torrance, california.

hoping that october's book the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society is just as good.