Author: Mitchell Zuckoff
Enjoyment Rating: 8/10
Referral: I saw this one frequently on "Recommended for You" at Amazon
Source: Audible for iPhone
Books I've read this year: 36
On a Sunday afternoon in May 1945, a plane took off from an American base in New Guinea, headed inland to the famed valley of Shangri-La, a valley that was vast and beautiful and filled with hundreds of thousands of natives that had no contact with the outside world and were thought to be cannibals. The plane crashed, and 21 of the 24 passengers died. John McCollom, Kenneth Decker, and Margaret Hastings survived the crash (although Decker and Hastings were badly injured) and had to be rescued from a place that was essentially inaccessible from the coast, and keep them safe from the natives.
My favorite book of 2010 was probably Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, and Lost in Shangri-La is a book in the same vein-- survival in the face of enormous odds. It's nonfiction that's as engrossing and entertaining as fiction. And Zuckoff's stroke of genius as an author was to focus on Margaret Hastings, making her the central character of the book. If this were a book about planes and soldiers and paratroopers and military politics, I doubt it's one I would have picked up, or if I had picked it up, I might not have wanted to finish it, but Zuckoff's book had a lot more appeal to me as a reader by making Margaret the central character. I wanted to see that WAC get out of the jungle. It's far more an adventure book than an exploration of character and psychology (like Unbroken), but it's still a fine read.
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