Unbroken

On a May afternoon in 1943, a US bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean. After an agonising delay, a young lieutenant finally bobbed to the surface and struggled aboard a life raft. So begins one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he turned to petty crime until he discovered a remarkable talent for running, which took him to the Berlin Olympics. But as war loomed, he joined up and was soon embroiled in the ferocious battle for the Pacific. Now Zamperini faced a journey of thousands of miles of open ocean on a failing raft, dogged by sharks, starvation and the enemy. Driven to limits of endurance, Zamperini's fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would depend on the strength of his will...

Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the number one bestsellers Unbroken and Seabiscuit, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The film it inspired was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. She served as a consultant on the Universal Pictures feature film based on Unbroken. Hillenbrand's New Yorker article, 'A Sudden Illness', won the 2004 National Magazine Award, and she is a two-time winner of the Eclipse Award. She and actor Gary Sinise co-founded Operation International Children, a charity that provided school supplies to children through American troops. She lives in Washington, D.C.