Zamperini is an Unbroken, great survivor

Lauren Hillenbrand follows up Seabiscuit with the biography of another winner, the Olympic runner and Second World War bombardier Louis Zamperini.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (Fourth Estate)

Laura Hillenbrand wrote a book about her equine hero, Seabiscuit, which was made into a fabulously successful movie. She spent the next seven years writing about a human hero, Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner and a Second World War bombardier. The author recalls that Zamperini told her: "I'll be an easier subject than Seabiscuit because I can talk."

And talk he did - over 75 interviews. The result is Unbroken, subtitled An Extraordinary True Story of Courage and Endurance.

Seven years after his run in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Zamperini crashed aboard a B-24 Liberator in the South Pacific. For 47 days, he and the pilot drift westward for 4,800 kilometres on a life raft, tormented by hunger and thirst, threatened by sharks and strafed by a Japanese bomber. In prison camp in Japan, he was victim of the Bird, a sadistic guard who beat him constantly.

When he returned to the US, Louie was tormented by post-traumatic stress and nightmares about the Bird. Hatred consumed him and turned him to drink. The story of Zamperini's ultimate redemption can only be called inspiring. He's still alive, skateboarding at the age of 94.