ALL HE COULD SEE, IN EVERY DIRECTION, WAS WATER. It was June 23, 1943. Somewhere on the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Army Air Forces bombardier and Olympic runner Louie Zamperini lay across a small raft, drifting westward. Slumped alongside him was a sergeant, one of his plane’s gunners. On a separate raft, tethered to the first, lay another crewman, a gash zigzagging across his forehead. Their bodies, burned by the sun and stained yellow from the raft dye, had winnowed down to skeletons. Sharks glided in lazy loops around them, dragging their backs along the rafts, waiting.

A favorite of hers was Come On Seabiscuit a 1963 kiddie book. On the irony of writing about physical paragons while being so incapacitated herself Laura Hillenbrand says "I'm looking for a way out of here. Personal life
Hillenbrand suffers from debilitating chronic fatigue syndrome and remains largely confined to her home.

Hillenbrand's second book was Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival Resilience and Redemption (2010) a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini. C and rarely leaves her house because of the condition. Hillenbrand married Borden Flanagan a professor of Government at American University and her college sweetheart in 2008.