Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand

"You don't have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book - you just have to love great storytelling." 

- excerpt from Rebecca Skloot, praising Unbroken 

Generally it takes me a few days to write these reviews. Even though I enjoy cataloging the books I've read for future reference and helping friends find good books, writing is still work, and I tend to avoid it when there are more pleasurable things to do (like starting a new book!). 

But I couldn't wait to write about Unbroken. 

I loved this book. 

It was slow going as I first began to read. I love a good autobiography or memoir, but I've rarely been drawn to biographies, as they are often written with just enough emotional distance that I become bored and disinterested. But it only took a few pages for the reading to pick up its pace. Laura Hillenbrand writes with the confidence and knowledge of someone who is familiar with her subject through years of research and personal interviews. Zamperini told his story to Hillenbrand himself, bridging the distance I so dislike. Soon, I couldn't put the book down. 

The autobiography records the life of Louis Zamperini, an almost-Olympic runner (the Olympics were cancelled due to WWII the year he qualified), and the book begins with Zamperini's childhood and adolescence, during which the boy was a rascal and a runner (putting both skills to good use with a bit of thievery). When he was of age, Zamperini was enlisted as a bombardier in the war, and in 1944 his plane was struck down, leaving Zamperini and two other men stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean. For forty-six days they drifted over two thousand miles, facing starvation, Japanese gunfire from up above, and the constant presence (and occasional attack) of sharks around their raft. One of the men died, but Zamperini and his friend Phil Allen were still alive when their raft floated within sight of a series of Japanese-inhabited islands. 

From that point on, Zamperini and Allen faced the most tortuous and nightmarish years of their lives, as they were passed from one execution island to another as unofficial prisoners of war. Zamperini in particular was treated with utter inhumanity, beaten, starved, and degraded day after day. The fact that he lived through his experiences in POW camps is, in itself, extraordinary. As I read, I found myself thinking time and time again how blessed I am and how easy my life has been. I gained such insight and appreciation for men and women that have been in the service; it is a life I cannot imagine. 

Even if the book had ended with Zamperini's liberation from the POW camps, I would have heartily recommended it. But what really made me love this story was the ending, because after an initial struggle with anger and alcoholism, Zamperini came to forgive his captors and the men who tortured him relentlessly. And this forgiveness...well, it's what amazes me most.

The Law of Similars, by Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian has quickly become one of my favorite authors, ever since L introduced me to his writing. The Law of Similars is one of his older novels (published in 1999) and doesn't possess the surprise ending all of his newer novels are known for, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot and learned a great deal about alternative medicine while I was at it. 

Carissa Lake is a homeopath, healing her patients under the belief that "like cures like." One of her patients, Leland, is a lawyer who can't kick a cold, and while he heals under Carissa's care, he also falls in love with her. Another of her patients, Richard, is an asthmatic with allergies, but his story ends rather differently as he suddenly has a severe allergic reaction and falls into a coma. 

Things get tangled fairly quickly when Carissa is blamed for Richard's sudden downfall, putting Leland in a precarious (and unethical) position as his law firm handles the case while he tries to cover up his relationship with the homeopath. 

On Writing, by Stephen King

This is one of my new favorite writing books (along with Annie Dillard's, Anne Lamott's, William Zinsser's, and Natalie Goldberg's). But, truth be told, I've rarely read a book on writing that I didn't like.

On Writing contained the perfect balance of autobiography and writing techniques. The first section discussed Stephen King's early life and how he was led to the field of writing. Then King dove straight into some of the techniques he feels are most important in good writing, and just when this section could have become a bit too tedious (because few of us can read for days on end about tone, point of view, dialogue, etc.), he retreated back to autobiography, this time discussing the car wreck that nearly took his life and how his writing process has changed as a result.

Originally, I borrowed this book from the library, but a third of the way through I realized I was folding over the corners of far too many pages, so I bought the book used and started marking it up like crazy with my pen (perhaps the highest recommendation I could give a book). There's no doubt this book will shape my writing instruction in the near future. 

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake

Toby (my dog) really loved the smell of this book. (He's one of very few that truly understands that the scent of a book, whether new or used, is just as important as the cover, and of course the contents.)

So. That's always a good sign.

But the cover and contents were pretty great, too. The Postmistress is set during World War II and primarily follows the lives of three individuals/couples. Iris James faithfully fulfills her duties as postmistress each day, stamping, sorting, and stuffing envelopes into P.O. boxes day after day. ...Until one day, when she decides to pocket a letter and keep the rightful reader in the dark as to its contents.

Frankie Bard is a radio broadcaster, reporting on the war from London and France, in hopes that America will respond to her call for action.

And Will and Emma Fitch are a couple that catch Frankie's broadcasts every now and again, and find themselves particularly touched by one report of a young boy who suddenly finds himself without a mother.

By the middle of the novel, each of these lives intersect.

I couldn't put this book down. It was a nice fast read that I thoroughly enjoyed. 

The Art of Losing, Edited by Kevin Young

I'll keep this short and sweet. The Art of Losing is a collection of poetry from old and new renowned poets. All of the 250 or so poems relate to the loss of a loved one, and are organized by stages of grief (not the typical "denial, anger, etc." stages, but stages like "redemption" and "remembrance"). I appreciated that there was also an index in the back that organized the poems based on what type of loved one was lost: a parent, a child, or a friend. 

After reading this volume cover to cover, I do not think I'd buy this book for my poetry collection (and I do collect poetry books, so this is saying quite a lot), but I did write down several of the poems for future reference. 

Handing One Another Along, by Robert Coles

My dad-in-law sent me a link for this book, and I'm glad he did. While I don't love how the book was organized (it looked like it was organized into authors that Coles would then discuss, but it really wasn't organized in any recognizable way at all, from what I could tell), I plan to use a good bit of the content to re-shape the literature course I teach.

It's hard to summarize the content of a book like this. It doesn't have a plot, per se. Mostly, it discusses various authors and how they lived among the poor or otherwise underprivileged in order to better inform their writing and have compassion for these marginalized social groups. It made me appreciate good authors all the more, as so many of them put such careful thought and research into what they do, and truly try to identify with people with whom they might not otherwise cross paths.

After reading Coles's book, I determined that sitting in his classes as a student (he was a professor at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School) would be convicting and thought-provoking. I felt like a student as I read his words, and it made me long for another college class or two...at least for a minute. 

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte

I love the classics, and Victorian literature is my favorite. A friend and I have both been wanting to read more classics lately, so we decided to read Wuthering Heights and then have a tea party (very Victorian!)/book discussion/movie viewing afterwards. 

When it was originally published in 1847, this novel was the basis for a great deal of controversy. Its rough and often abusive characters disturbed critics and readers, many of whom were convinced the novel was written by a man (all of the Bronte sisters used pseudonyms and Emily's was the androgynous "Ellis Bell") because of the violence and hatred the book contained. 

That said, the novel is rather complex, both in its storyline (where a boy and a girl grow up together, fall in love, marry other people, and then have children who love each other but are never happy or fulfilled) and narration (there are two different narrators, and the book spans two generations). I found myself consulting Cliffs Notes more than once just to make sure I was understanding everything that was going on. I loved reading it, though, and being transported to another time, where people lived in grand estates and had to walk a mile or two to visit their neighbors (who, it seems, they always ended up marrying). It's not satisfying in the sense that everyone lives happily ever after (I don't think a single character did), but at the same time it's rather nice sometimes to read a more realistic portrait of life and love. 

This summer I plan to read several more classics, including The Great Gatsby, which I always feel I should have read, but never actually have. Any more suggestions for me? I have twenty or so "must read" books currently sitting on my dresser waiting impatiently to be read, but I could always add a few more! 

High School Confidential, by Jeremy Iversen

I love the idea of this book: a recent college graduate is hesitant to go straight from the rigors of Princeton University to the work world. His explanation is that until you graduate from college, you are climbing up on the fun scale, gaining more and more freedom as you venture from elementary to middle school, middle to high school, and high school to college. But then, suddenly, you plummet downward again, because leaving college with all of its free time and freedom to enter a nine to five job seems...well, depressing. So Jeremy decided to leap backwards, and he entered his senior year in high school all over again, this time undercover. 

(I should note here that I love this idea only because I find anything undercover fascinating. The part of me that loves students and feels protective of them doesn't so much like the idea of deceiving them and writing a book about everything they do and say, even if the names and places are disguised.) 

It's an interesting read, revealing the student life of a particular California school. What I didn't like was the negative slant that pervaded the entire book. You hear the vulgar conversations, discover who is using drugs and drinking alcohol (according to this book, nearly everybody), and peek into classrooms where teachers are spending all their time befriending students or showing pre-1950s slide shows all period every day - and while I realistically know this is partially accurate, I like to think for every student that has taken the wrong path and every teacher that has chosen the wrong occupation there are dozens more students and teachers that are giving it their all and making their high school proud. And, after half a dozen years of teaching, I don't think I'm being naive in thinking this. 

So, for the bitter taste this book left me with, I wouldn't recommend it.