Book Talk Tuesday (a day late)

The two books I'm going to tell you about today are Unbroken and The Samurai's Garden.  Let me first say, that when I started these books (one in audio and one in paper), I didn't realize they took place around the same time in history (pre-WWII and WWII).  It made the experience very enlightening. 

First up...The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

This book is written through journal entries written by Stephen.  the young with tuberculosis.  It is short book and an easy read.  I enjoyed it and thought the story and relationship between the two men, one Chinese and one Japanese, during such a volatile time was touching.  I would highly recommend this one!

Next up is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  Taking place 10 years later when the US has joined the war.

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood.  Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.  It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard.  So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini.  In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails.  As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.  But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

I loved this story!  It is beautifully written and such a compelling story of survival.  In the audio version, this is ready by Edward Herrmann.  I love him as an actor and his voice was fantastic for this.  There was definitely an added element with the audio version.  I highly recommend this one as well.