thatbookishwriter's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
reflective
tense
4.0
cher_n_books's review
1.0
1.5 stars - I didn't like it.
This survival story would make for an interesting magazine article, but there were simply not enough events or information to force a novel out of the story. Instead, the author cobbled together numerous tangents which make up the majority of the material, and created this very fractured and disjointed book. Unfortunately, the result is that it feels long and drug out despite its very short length.
The reader does not even feel like they really get to know Leon Crane, whom the title misleads you into thinking the whole book will concern. There was never a feeling of suspense, in part because the survival story is constantly being paused to go off on yet another tangent. I simply wasn't concerned with what happened next. This book was easy to put down and was only ever picked back up to finish it for a book club discussion.
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Favorite Quote: War is always a negative-sum outcome. It subtracts, removes, empties. No one who has witnessed combat can, with any honesty, describe it another way.
First Sentence: These are true stories.
This survival story would make for an interesting magazine article, but there were simply not enough events or information to force a novel out of the story. Instead, the author cobbled together numerous tangents which make up the majority of the material, and created this very fractured and disjointed book. Unfortunately, the result is that it feels long and drug out despite its very short length.
The reader does not even feel like they really get to know Leon Crane, whom the title misleads you into thinking the whole book will concern. There was never a feeling of suspense, in part because the survival story is constantly being paused to go off on yet another tangent. I simply wasn't concerned with what happened next. This book was easy to put down and was only ever picked back up to finish it for a book club discussion.
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Favorite Quote: War is always a negative-sum outcome. It subtracts, removes, empties. No one who has witnessed combat can, with any honesty, describe it another way.
First Sentence: These are true stories.
emilyrosebooks's review
3.0
I thought this was a pretty interesting read, I learned a lot about WWII and some of the happenings up in Alaska. I thought there would be more about his survival, but I liked how it worked in some of his history as well as that of his comrades throughout the book. Not a cliff hanger of course, but I definitely wanted to keep turning pages!
cook_memorial_public_library's review
4.0
A 2015 staff nonfiction favorite recommended by Thomas.
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__S81%20days%20below%20zero%20murphy__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__S81%20days%20below%20zero%20murphy__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
jelisela's review against another edition
4.0
I loved the story, but the editing was terrible. Quotation marks were used at random, there were a bunch of incomplete sentences, and some of the sentences were missing periods at the end. If you can look past that, it's a great, quick read.
sheltzer's review against another edition
3.0
Apparently I have a thing about WWII planes crashing in the great white north. Last year I read about the Grumman Duck in Greenland, this year I followed the story of Leon Crane who crashed in the interior of Alaska.
Crane's bomber was out for a routine run to test out the feathering on the propellers when an engine stalled out and the plane crashed. Crane and one other crewmen were able to jump out of the plane, but only Crane survived. He did so by walking out of the forest to safety. It took 81 days in the Alaskan winter for him to do so. Good fortune smiled on him in that he found a cabin with a cache of supplies which allowed him to recover from the crash's aftermath and regain the feeling in his hands as well as upgrade his winter gear.
The story itself is relatively simple. It's not as fleshed out as it could have been, not by fault of the author, but because Crane appears to have suffered from survivor's guilt and wouldn't talk much about his ordeal.
My only other complaint about the book is that Mr. Murphy found interesting tidbits that were tangentially related to the main story and stuck them into the narrative, disrupting the flow of the book. I would have preferred these as foot/end notes or in an appendix of some kind.
An interesting read, made more interesting having lived in Fairbanks for 3 years so I understood the dangers of the weather and the rough geography of the area.
Crane's bomber was out for a routine run to test out the feathering on the propellers when an engine stalled out and the plane crashed. Crane and one other crewmen were able to jump out of the plane, but only Crane survived. He did so by walking out of the forest to safety. It took 81 days in the Alaskan winter for him to do so. Good fortune smiled on him in that he found a cabin with a cache of supplies which allowed him to recover from the crash's aftermath and regain the feeling in his hands as well as upgrade his winter gear.
The story itself is relatively simple. It's not as fleshed out as it could have been, not by fault of the author, but because Crane appears to have suffered from survivor's guilt and wouldn't talk much about his ordeal.
My only other complaint about the book is that Mr. Murphy found interesting tidbits that were tangentially related to the main story and stuck them into the narrative, disrupting the flow of the book. I would have preferred these as foot/end notes or in an appendix of some kind.
An interesting read, made more interesting having lived in Fairbanks for 3 years so I understood the dangers of the weather and the rough geography of the area.