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POSTED: 19 DECEMBER 2010 One man's unforgettable journey into the extreme As a boy in California in the 1920s, Louie Zamperini was a study in uncorralled energy and defiance: at age two he escaped through an open window and ran naked down the street of his hometown; at 10 he was the kid who stole the pie off the windowsill and ran like hell; at 15 he was running away from home to ride the rails. At the point when his life could have taken a seriously wrong turn, his elder brother channelled Zamperini’s energy into competitive running, and within a year, he was breaking records. His fierce determination took him all the way to the 1936 Olympics, and within sight of becoming the first runner ever to break the four-minute mile. Then his life, like that of his whole generation, was interrupted by Pearl Harbor. Overnight Louie Zamperini went from athlete to Army Air Corps bombardier. And that was just the beginning of an incredible odyssey of determination and survival that forced him to draw upon every resource within himself to overcome seemingly insurmountable circumstances, took him halfway around the world — to hell and back — and only truly began when he returned home. In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes an unforgettable story of one man’s journey into extremity. Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body and spirit. Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the acclaimed Seabiscuit: An American Legend, a non-fiction account of the career of the great racehorse Seabiscuit, for which she won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2001. *Based on media release issued by Harper Collins. |
Louie Zamperini ... nearly off the rails but fierce determination took him all the way to the 1936 Olympics
PUBLISHING DETAILS Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand | 500pp hardcover $55 | To be published February 2011 by HarperCollins. |
