Over the past few years I have developed a love for World War II history. Not sure how it got started, but I am in too deep to ever get out now. I guess what keeps me reading is that every book, every battle account I read teaches me something new about leadership, decision making, strategy and even about community.

 

Ship of Ghosts is the latest book for me - and it was fascinating. James D. Hornfischer (see Hornfischer's site) does a great job telling the story of the USS Houston and her crew. It would be a great book if all it did was chronicle the battles they fought in the Asian theater of WWII. But the book is less than half over when the story shifts to the survival of the crew in the most brutal circumstances. The Houston's sailors were among the thousands who worked in slave-like conditions building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. Remember Bridge over the River Kwai? That's the other half of the story. Not surprisingly, the movie got most of it wrong.

These men survived starvation, forced-labor, disease, physical and psychological torture. If the account is only half true, I am amazed any made it out alive. In fact, over 16,000 Allied troops and over 200,000 native laborers died building this rail line.

So how did the survivors make it through? Sheer will power and the power of community. OK, there was some luck in there as well. But they survived together. When one fell sick, the others cared for him. Multiple times a man facing starvation would dig into a personal, hidden stash of rations and pull out a can of condensed milk to give to a man who was a few steps closer to death than he. More than once a man would step in and take a physical beating for another who would not have possibly survived the punishment meted out by their captors.

Books like this challenge my thinking. Make me wonder about my commitment to my small group, to my friends, to my co-workers. They cause me to examine the depth of my relationships.

And they challenge me to read works outside my profession or my comfort zone. To learn from unexpected sources.

So what do you read - I mean aside from the latest books from Christian authors? What stretches your thinking? Got a good book to recommend? I'm looking for the next good one.