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this book was okay. the subject matter was interesting, but the author kept going on tangents and felt the need to give a detailed back story on secondary and tertiary characters.
Fantastic! Highly recommended for any fan of adventure non-fiction. Very well-researched, well-paced, with enough depth and detail to bring this epic rescue mission to life. I couldn't put it down; I finished it in one weekend and am still thinking about the characters and their harrowing experiences. I especially enjoyed learning about the strange customs of the indigenous tribes in the valley.
What an amazing story - a plane filled with "sightseeing" servicemen and WACs crashes in what they think is a hidden valley (except it's actually one valley over), and only three people survive. One has a severe head injury and burned buttocks, one has burned feet, hands, face and legs, and the other is seemingly unharmed. They escape the crash site, hidden in the jungle, and make it to a clearing where they meet Stone Age tribesmen who don't kill them, and after a few days are found by a search plane.
Problem is, the rescue isn't that simple. The valley is one mile up, so helicopters won't work. It's jungle-filled, and landing a plane won't work. The survivors are injured, and the only way to hike out is 150-ish miles either through swampy jungle or through Japanese-soldier infested jungle. Again, won't work.
Based on the diaries of the survivors and memories of some of the older natives who met the strange, white people who fell from the sky, Lost in Shangri-La is an adventure story that will appeal to those that love Jon Krakauer's work. And when Bobby Brinson at HarperCollins recommends a book, read it.
ARC provided by publisher.
Problem is, the rescue isn't that simple. The valley is one mile up, so helicopters won't work. It's jungle-filled, and landing a plane won't work. The survivors are injured, and the only way to hike out is 150-ish miles either through swampy jungle or through Japanese-soldier infested jungle. Again, won't work.
Based on the diaries of the survivors and memories of some of the older natives who met the strange, white people who fell from the sky, Lost in Shangri-La is an adventure story that will appeal to those that love Jon Krakauer's work. And when Bobby Brinson at HarperCollins recommends a book, read it.
ARC provided by publisher.
I ended up listening to the audio version of this book and was hooked right away. Different than your typical WWII story in that there wasn't enemy combat as the focus. Such a great story, I'm so glad that I was given this recommendation.
I do love a good WWII story. This was quite an interesting twist and an intriguing plot but I was waiting for something a bit more dramatic to happen. After the plane crash, the events with the natives seemed a bit melodramatic when in the end, nothing that weird happened. Nonetheless, it was a good story.
3.5 A fun, interesting non-fiction adventure story.
This was an interesting read rather than the scintillating one it should have been. Much like when you over research a dissertation but are determined to shoehorn in there every book you have read, Mr Zuckoff has included far too much extraneous irrelevant detail. I also found his approach to Margaret cringingly sexist. Overall it was worth reading.
On Mother's Day 1945, some military officers, both male and female, based in what is now Papua - an Indonesian province on the island of New Guinea - went on a boondoggle. They set out to fly over the mysterious valley of savage* cannibals in central New Guinea. The story is interesting. The research well done. The writing is okay. The ending just trickles off.....
Maybe more than a 3 but not a 4.
*Their word, not mine.
Maybe more than a 3 but not a 4.
*Their word, not mine.
Great non-fiction account of a service man/woman sight seeing trip gone horrible wrong. In Dutch New Guinea nearing the end of WW11 nearly 25 people on a plane hoping to see the valley of "Shangri-La" crashed into the side of a valley mountain with only 3 survivors. It's their survivors story and the story of the bravery and ingenuity of their rescuers. A good read.