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Book Discussion Questions: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

SPOILER WARNING: These book discussion questions are highly detailed and will ruin plot points, if you have not read the book.

Title: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Page Count: 473
Genre: Nonfiction – Biography
Tone: Inspirational, adventurous, engaging

1. Was there something special about Louie that could be seen at an early age or did his actions reflect more on a style of parenting? (e.g., climbing out the window and running down the street as a two year old with pneumonia or jumping off the train to California)

2. Louie moved from being a rambunctious toddler into what some would call a delinquent. Did you find it difficult to empathize with Louie given his devious behavior?

3. Do you think in today’s society Louie would face more trouble with the law or school authorities as a young person?

4. What are the ways in which Louie’s childhood prepared him for his time in the war?

5. What impact did seeing the German dirigible Graf Zepplin have on Louie as a12-year-old boy? Why did Hillenbrand choose to open the book with this image?

6. If his older brother Pete had not come up with a plan to get him into track, would Louie’s life have been different? How?

7. Did the Great Depression prepare Louie, and perhaps others of his generation, to persevere through the great hardships they would later face in the war?

8. Why did young Louie long to be a cowboy?

9. How was Louie able to set the NCAA record for the mile with a cracked rib, cut shins, and a bloody foot?

10. What did you take away from Louie’s time on the boat to Berlin? Can you believe he gained 12 pounds eating the almost unlimited amount of food?

11. Louie came in 7th place at the Berlin Olympics, but had such a fast stride at the end that Hitler wanted to meet him. What did you think of this experience?

12. Do you think Louie would’ve broken the 4-minute mile if it hadn’t been for the war?

13. How many of you knew Zamperini survived? Did that affect your reading of the book?

14. Did anyone find it unusual that Louie had so many photographs of these different times in his life, especially the war photos?

15. When Louie, Phil, and the crew of Superman returned from their first mission, they found that their friends’ plane crashed on take-off and the entire crew was killed. How did this affect Louie’s view of the war?

16. Were you surprised the majority of Army Air Force casualties in World War II were due to accidents? (p. 80)

17. After Superman’s dramatic return from Nauru, the plane was barely intact. Louie attributed the crew’s survival not only to Phil’s expert flying, but to the plane itself. How important was it that the crew knew how to fly their specific plane?

18. Why did the lieutenant ask the men to take the Green Hornet on the search mission, in spite of their misgivings that it wasn’t airworthy?

19. What devices did Zamperini and others use to survive and maintain their sanity during their time on the raft and in the POW camp?

20. What explains how Louie and Pete were able to survive on the raft while Mac, who seemed to have no physical injuries, did not? Are survival skills learned or inherent?

21. Why were many of the Japanese who first found Louie and Pete kind to them? Why were they surprised that the men had been fired on in their raft?

22. What do you find the most horrifying about Louie’s captivity? Were you aware of the biological experiments the Japanese were conducting on POWs and civilians alike?

23. Why didn’t the guards kill the prisoners when they knew the end was in sight for Japan?

24. Do you think there is less of a focus on Japan’s role in historical accounts of WWII than on Germany’s? If so, why would that be?

25. How was Japan able to reinvent itself after WWII? Has Germany been able to reinvent itself as well?

26. How was Louie able to readjust to life after the war? How was he able to overcome the struggles that were common to many veterans such as alcoholism and depression?

27. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was identified as a legitimate condition. Why did this diagnosis take so long to be recognized?

28. Which do you think was more responsible for Louie’s drastic life change, the idea that his wife was going to leave him or his attending the Billy Graham revival?

29. What role did Jimmy Sasaki play in the book and in Louie’s life? Why was he on campus at USC when Louie was in college and what did he do when he showed up at the POW camp? (p. 357)

30. How was Louie able to forgive The Bird and his other captors? How did you feel about the punishments the guards received after WWII? What happened to The Bird?

31. Like Louie, Bill Harris survived the war and the Japanese POW camp. Why do you think he chose to remain in the military? What do you think happened to him when he went missing in Korea?

32. Did you learn something new from this book?

33. Were there parts of the story you found difficult to believe?

34. What did you think of Hillenbrand’s style of writing? Was there anything you didn’t like in the writing or anything you wished Hillenbrand would’ve covered more deeply?

35. Are you familiar with Hillenbrand’s own health struggles (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)? Did you know she was unable to leave her house for more than two years while she wrote this book? She tells The New York Times:

“Writing is a godsend to me that way. Without it I wouldn’t have anything. I am completely still almost all the time. A lot of time I don’t leave the upstairs. What I have is the story I’m working on. It’s a wonderful thing for me to get out of my body for a while.”

How, if at all, does this affect her writing?

36. What does Unbroken add to the already voluminous collection of WWII research? What value is there, or is there any at all, in telling the story of one man’s experience in the war?

37. Tom Brokaw coined the term “The Greatest Generation” to refer to people from Louie’s time who came of age during the Great Depression, fought during WWII, and took care of the homefront. Is this moniker accurate?

38. Why did Hillenbrand include this quote from Walt Whitman’s The Wound-Dresser, “What stays with you latest and deepest? Of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?” What do you think are the “deepest remains” for Louie Zamperini?

Other Resources:

Laura Hillenbrand’s website
Laura Hillenbrand interviewed by NPR
Laura Hillenbrand interviewed by the Kenyon Collegian
Louis Zamperini interviewed by CBS
Louis Zamperini in discussion at USC Annenberg
New York Magazine review of Unbroken
The Wall Street Journal review of Unbroken

By Readers' Advisor on April 3, 2013 Categories: Book Discussion Questions, Books, Nonfiction

Foolishness

If you think of Shakespeare as stuffy and staid, get ready to experience the drama in a whole new way. Christopher Moore, known for his irreverent humor and wacky plots, takes on the weighty King Lear in Fool. This time the king’s jester, Pocket, is the lead, and he tells a story full of bawdy adventure, murderous mayhem, and outright vulgarity that exposes the royal family as anything but regal. Traditionally, the fool’s role was both to entertain and to expose the truth. This clown goes much further, engineering a complicated scheme to start a war, save a girl, punish the stupid, and do it all with more raunchiness than Shakespeare himself might have imagined. Oh, and there’s a ghost. There’s always a ghost.

By Readers' Advisor on April 1, 2013 Categories: Books, Humor

LISTS: Fairy Tales for Adults

Being a grown up can be a drag…but living in a world where a simple walk in the woods can turn magical, where beasts and mirrors can talk, and to-do lists include epic adventures, evil witches, and brothers named Grimm – now that is living.

Click here for fairy tale books and here for fairy tale movies aimed at adults.

By Readers' Advisor on March 29, 2013 Categories: Books, Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Lists, Movies and Television

1976 South Africa

Isaac was smuggled out of South Africa after he witnessed the violent murder of his friend by two white men in the uniform of the South African Defense Force. After traveling in the secret compartment of a hearse, Isaac makes it to Botswana, but is left by the side of the road unconscious. A skinny white dog is there when Isaac awakens and travels door-to-door looking for gardening work. Eventually, Alice hires him. After a weekend away, Alice comes home to find Isaac missing. White Dog Fell From the Sky by Eleanor Morse is a story of loyalty, cruelty, apartheid, and Alice’s search for her new friend Isaac, with his white dog in tow.

By Readers' Advisor on March 28, 2013 Categories: Books

Donna S.’s Pick: Home Front

In Home Front, Kristin Hannah explores military females serving in war zones. Joleen, a U.S. Army reservist, has been called to active duty. She leaves behind her family, including her shaky marriage, to fly Black Hawk helicopters in Iraq, and nothing is the same when she gets home.

By Readers' Advisor on March 26, 2013 Categories: All Staff Picks, Books, Picks by Donna S.

LISTS: If You Like Maeve Binchy

It has been a snowy, cold winter, but Maeve Binchy’s character-driven stories of friendship and family will warm you from the inside out. Binchy (1940 – 2012) was a novelist, playwright, and columnist best known for making the lives of her everyday, usually Irish, characters undeniably absorbing to readers.

Click here for a list of leisurely-paced authors similar to Maeve Binchy, while you wait for her last novel, A Week in Winter, to come up on hold.

By Readers' Advisor on March 22, 2013 Categories: Books, Lists

Book Discussion Questions: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

SPOILER WARNING: These book discussion questions are highly detailed and will ruin plot points, if you have not read the book.

Title: Never Let Me Go
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Page Count: 288
Genre: Science Fiction
Tone: Complex, suspenseful, thoughtful

1. In one interview, Ishiguro observes that in many reviews of Never Let Me Go, the words “strange” or “sinister” keep coming up. Do these words reflect your experience with the book? What other words would you use?

2. Ishiguro, on the other hand, claims he thinks of this as his “most cheerful book”. Why do you think that is?

Ishiguro: “In the past, I had written about characters’ failings…With NLMG I felt that for the first time I had given myself permission to focus on the positive aspects of human beings. OK, they might be flawed. They might be prone to the usual human emotions like jealousy and pettiness and so on. But I wanted to show three people who were essentially decent. When they finally realize their time is limited, I wanted them…to care most about each other and setting things right. So for me, it was saying positive things about human beings against the rather bleak fact of our mortality.” (The Paris Review)

3. At what point in the story did you realize the full meaning of “donor” and “complete”?

4. One of the most common criticisms of the story is that the students never take action to change their fate. Did this bother you? How do you respond to the author’s explanation of his choice:

“It’s something I do instinctively in my writing,” says Ishiguro “and with this book it was a very important feature that escape was not an option. It’s about how we’re all aware of our fate, in that we have a limited time in life. Escape isn’t an issue in the book, because it’s never really an option in our own lives. Characters like Stevens and the kids in Never Let Me Go do what we all do; try to give meaning to our lives by fulfilling some sort of duty.”

5. Kathy’s narration is a key to the novel’s disquieting effect. Was the choice of Kathy’s perspective a wise one? How would the novel be different if narrated from Tommy’s point of view, or Ruth’s, or even Miss Emily’s?

6. What are some of Ruth’s most striking character traits? How might her social behavior, at Hailsham and later at the Cottages, be explained? Why does she seek her “possible” so earnestly?

7. Art is a recurring motif throughout Never Let Me Go. In which scenes is art a topic? What is the importance to the students as children? As adults? To the story’s themes?

8. Speaking of love, what is the importance of the myth of deferral – both to the students and to the narrative? As you read, did you have hope that this was a real possibility for them?

9. Why do you think there was so much attention given to sexual urges and relationships? Is it simply because the story focuses on adolescents and young adults, or is there another explanation?

10. How is the students’ inability to have children significant?

11. What is the significance of the title?

12. What were your reactions to the meeting with Miss Emily and Madame?

13. Is it surprising that Miss Emily admits feeling revulsion for the children at Hailsham?

14. What is the book saying about childhood? Think about this, too, in the context of Miss Lucy, who wanted to make the children more aware of the future that awaited them. In contrast, Miss Emily claims they were able to give them something precious – “we gave you your childhoods” (p. 268). In the context of the story as a whole, is this a valid argument?

15. One the distinguishing features of Ishiguro’s novels is his prose style. How would you characterize his writing? How did you respond to it?

16. If you have seen the recent movie adaptation, what impressed you? What disappointed you? Which did you find more poignant?

17. Did this novel surprise you? Would you be open to reading another like it? Are there similar books you might suggest?

Other Resources:

Abe Books discussion questions
Lit Lovers discussion questions
Kazuo Ishiguro interviewed by Allan Gregg
Book review by The Guardian
Book review by The New York Times
Ethics of cloning Wikipedia page
Trailer for movie adaptation

By Readers' Advisor on March 20, 2013 Categories: Book Discussion Questions, Books, Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Patty’s Pick: Blackbirds

Miriam Black knows when and how you’re going to die. She’s a beautifully scummy woman resigned to edge-living and stealing from the dead…until she meets a trucker named Louis. For a gutter punk Dead Zone with a strong, but not infallible female lead, try Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds.

By Readers' Advisor on March 19, 2013 Categories: All Staff Picks, Books, Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Picks by Patty

Do Readers Make the Best Spies?

In Cold War-era Britain, compulsive reader Serena Frome is unexpectedly recruited by MI5. Her big chance comes with the launch of Operation Sweet Tooth, one designed to fight Communist propaganda by secretly supporting writers with the right ideals. Serena’s beauty and interest in books puts her in an ideal position to befriend rising author Tom Haley. From the first paragraph of Ian McEwan’s latest, we already know that the mission doesn’t end well, but it’s easy to be distracted by the earnest narration of actress Juliet Stevenson. Through her voice, Serena feels her way through perception, deception, and manipulation. Exposure is imminent, but who, by whom, and how? Just wait for the final reveal, one that will especially gratify fans of Atonement.

By Readers' Advisor on March 18, 2013 Categories: Audiobooks, Books, Historical Fiction, Literary

LISTS: Irish Authors

Yeats, Beckett, and Joyce are darkly poetic and philosophically enthralling. They are also not the only excellent Irish writers out there. This Saint Patrick’s Day, grab a book to go with your Guinness – and try someone new!

Click here for a list of contemporary and classic Irish writers.

By Readers' Advisor on March 15, 2013 Categories: Books, Lists