Final advice from an 'Unbroken' legend

Louis Zamperini started smoking at the age of 6 and lived to be 97 years old. Death by tobacco would have been far too prosaic for a man who survived, in order: a plane crash while serving as a bombardier in World War II; a shark-stalked drift through the Pacific; confinement in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp; and a post-war life that included everything from battles with the bottle to getting "mixed up" in a bank robbery.

The son of Italian immigrants, Zamperini grew up poor in Southern California, epitomizing rugged individualism. He became a track star at USC and made his name at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where even Hitler noticed his fast finish in the 5,000-meter race.

But that was only the beginning for Zamperini, tall and infinitely confident, with the square-jawed handsomeness of some central-casting All-American. He had miles to go before he slept.

Perhaps his life story and outsized personality only invite such clichés -- after all, it's a more than twice-told tale. Zamperini's 2003 autobiography, Devil at My Heels, led to Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 mega-best seller, Unbroken, due at your multiplex on Christmas Day as a film directed by Angelina Jolie.

Zamperini died on July 2 of this year, just two days after he and co-writer David Rensin sent this new book to the publisher. While it doesn't add very much, narratively, to the previous books, Don't Give Up, Don't Give In is a fitting capstone to a decade-plus of the Zamperini legend, and a worthy curtain-raiser for Jolie's epic.

Snappy and flinty, it exudes the nothing-to-lose honesty of a nonagenarian whose to-hell-and-back history results in a spiritual self-satisfaction. It also sheds more light on the reality of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), which afflicted Zamperini but which he, like so many World War II veterans, managed to repress just enough to resettle himself in married American life. For a while, though, he charted a brawling course through the post-war world, fighting with the likes of Frank Sinatra and hanging out with the wrong people.

As he tells it, "two and a half years of torture and humiliation at numerous prison camps, much of it doled out by Sgt. Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a psychotic and vindictive prison guard nicknamed the Bird," left Zamperini with a hunger for revenge. "I drank too much, got into fights, had an inflated ego, and no self-esteem. I also had constant nightmares about killing the Bird."

His life would change when his wife persuaded him in 1949 to attend a Los Angeles appearance of the evangelist Dr. Billy Graham, whose crusades were just becoming popular. Following Graham and fully embracing Christianity, Zamperini went on to found the Victory Boys Camp for troubled youth and build a career as an inspirational speaker.

While Zamperini's advice and life lessons may not rise far above the level of tough-it-out bromides – "You need a cloud to have a silver lining," "You're only as old as you feel," "Don't forget to laugh" – this valedictory book reflects a great deal of the charm and colorful authority he brought to the world.

Don't Give Up, Don't Give In: Lessons From an Extraordinary Life

By Louis Zamperini and David Rensin

Dey Street, 238 pp.

3 stars out of four