Don't Give Up, Don't Give In

New York Times Bestseller: This memoir by the Unbroken hero “brims with sage wisdom . . . and fond observations from his adventurous ninety-seven years” (Kirkus Reviews).

Completed just two days before Louis Zamperini’s death at age ninety-seven, Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In shares a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and humor from “one of the most incredible American lives of the past century” (People). Zamperini’s story has touched millions through Laura Hillenbrand’s biography Unbroken and its blockbuster movie adaptation. Here, in his own words, Zamperini reveals with warmth and great charm the essential values and lessons that sustained him throughout his remarkable journey.

He was a youthful troublemaker from California who turned his life around to become a 1936 Olympian. Putting aside his track career, he volunteered for the army before Pearl Harbor and was thrust into World War II as a B-24 bombardier. While on a rescue mission, his plane went down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where he survived against all odds, drifting two thousand miles on a small raft for forty-seven days. His struggle was only beginning: Zamperini was captured by the Japanese, and for more than two years he courageously endured torture and psychological abuse in a series of POW camps. He returned home to face more dark hours—but in 1949 Zamperini’s life was transformed by a spiritual rebirth that would guide him through the next sixty-five years of his long and happy life. Louis Zamperini’s Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In is an extraordinary last testament that captures the wisdom of a life lived to the fullest.

“A fitting capstone to the Zamperini legend.” —USA Today