22 November 2013

Five Minute Friday ~ Fly

So I read this book last weekend as we were flying down the highway at 75ish miles per hour. It was really more of the kind of book Tim would typically read, but I guess I liked the cover so I'd picked it up. Speaking of hubby, he decided that 75 mph wasn't good for the gas mileage and decided to fly a little lower and slower on the way home. But I digress. Is there any easy way to cover 1300ish miles in three days?


Part of the time we spent driving through THIS storm... hoping we didn't run into any flying objects due to the high speed wind gusts. I'm still digressing...


So what was the name of the book?

Unbroken (by Laura Hillenbrand).

Perhaps because my grandfather, a WW2 vet, had just passed away - AND I was looking for a distraction for the long ride down to his funeral so I didn't keep relapsing into tears, I bought this as well as the birthday gift for one of my son's classmates that originally spurred me to visit Barnes and Noble last Friday night. I think I had finished the book before Effingham.

It wasn't that the writing was riveting. In fact, while the details and incidents that are described in this account are always fascinating, the writing seemed stilted, quite dry and boring. The story of Louie Zamperini's life, however? It was anything but...

Hoodlum turned Olympic runner drafted to become a B-24 bombardier who's plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean twisting him and his fellow survivors into shark bait and target practice for Japanese aircraft for a death-defying length of time until finally, they escaped by drifting helplessly into the Marshall Islands where he and one remaining survivor disappeared without a trace, lost in the clutches of the Japanese POW "machine" for the next two plus years.

Literally, this guy's bio reads like the script of a movie that couldn't possibly be true, except that it was.

But my favorite parts of his story centered on his perseverance and indomitable, almost unconquerable spirit... many glimpses of kindness and caring in unexpected ways and places... and how Zamperini finally breaks and but then finds hope that does even more than merely mend and restore.

A story that might have never been had Zamperini not climbed into a plane no longer truly flight-worthy.

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Join the 5 Minute Friday community over at Lisa-Jo's, as many take their own turn writing on today's word: fly.

Hope to see you there.




7 comments:

  1. I've heard wonderful things about that book. Would like to read it eventually. And no, there is no easy way to make a 1300-mile trip.

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    1. don't think it quite matches up with its hype, but definitely worth the read. thanks for popping by today! :-)

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  2. I've been reading great reviews of this book. Hate to tell you this a 1300-ish mile trip in one day is next to impossible. Glad you made it safely.

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    1. we didn't do it in one day... it was down one day, there for a funeral the next and then home the third. however, our son goes to college 600 miles + change distant and we've gone down to get him and bring him home, less than 24 hours... and it isn't fun.

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  3. I've read great reviews of this book. Hope to read it soon. Be careful on those long one-day trips!

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  4. Wow - that is a lot of mileage (and thank goodness you made it through that storm!?) We are neighbors over at Lisa Jo's today and I wanted to stop by and say hello! I have heard of this book... mostly good reviews... but honestly - my own stacks of must reads are toppling over (and I just rediscovered the library too!? Uh oh! Maybe Unbroken will be a library read in a few more months!)

    Sorry to hear about your Grandfather. My own Grandmothers funeral was today... there is a bit of weeping and a bit of rejoicing all mixed in to her passing... praying the same is true for your family!
    ~K~

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    1. thanks for popping in, karrilee. sorry to read about your loss as well. my grandfather was a godly man who knew he was going to be with the Lord... and that's what my grandmother is clinging to these days.

      blessings!

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