100 Books Like Lucky 666

Almost impossible to put down—this was the first book that made me physically feel the words.

I wouldn’t call it enjoyable in the usual sense; the experience was excruciating. But that’s exactly what makes it unforgettable. Hillenbrand’s prose, paired with the true story of Louis Zamperini’s plunge from Olympic track star to the unrelenting hell of a POW camp, smacks you off your cozy little couch and right into a world where Sleepytime tea, candles, and Netflix don’t exist.

What struck me most was how it captured not only the brutality of survival, but the stubborn, almost irrational resolve of the human spirit—and the possibility of forgiveness that would defy logic. This isn’t a book that’s light to hold—it’s grit, torment, and triumph in equal parts. I recommend it because it inspires without sugarcoating—harrowing and uplifting in the same breath.

For anyone who wants proof of just how deep the… show more.

Haing Ngor, is still only one of three Asian actors to win an Oscar, received in 1985 for Best Supporting Actor in his portrayal of journalist Dith Pran for the film, The Killing Fields. Remarkably Haing Ngor himself was a survivor of the genocide in Cambodia, a trained Doctor at the time before the Khmer Rouge enacted their devastating atrocities upon the country. He would only survive torture by pretending to be an uneducated taxi driver. This book will leave you in awe and inspired, as it did for me, of Haing Ngor’s life. He resettles in America, doing jobs cleaning latrines to suddenly finding himself becoming Hollywood famous overnight. He was an important voice in the advocacy of human rights, until he, unfortunately, passed away in 1996.

This book is nonfiction, so it’s about real people rather than fictional characters. I love this book because it gives a descriptive perspective on what was happening and what was going on in Nazi-occupied Germany and Poland during World War II, and the horrors of the concentration camps (mainly Auschwitz) that were built and used to kill everyone the nazis hated for whatever insane reasons they had.

I’ve always had an almost alarming interest in World War II. It was my favorite lesson from the history classes I’ve taken, and this book really put some of the evil things that were done during that time into perspective.

This is a story about brutality, justice, and mercy, set amongst the aftermath of Lomax’s experiences as a POW in WWII. With a steady gaze he faces the depths of human barbarity and reckons with his own emotional responses.

Lomax confronts his previous captor wanting retribution, but instead makes an astonishing decision that changes the course of hatred for both him and his perpetrator. I also grappled with the shadows of dark acts committed against my family - even all these years later. 

Perhaps the very best crafted book of this selection, this is a remarkable story about a relatively unremarkable combat career.  Samuel Hynes—who later taught at Northwestern and Princeton—gives the reader not just a rote recounting of his experiences as a Marine Corps pilot during the war, but he also shares what and how he felt. He is unwaveringly honest, and includes an account of a sexual encounter that at the very least causes the reader to reflect on the morals of that time. His book is a refreshing look behind the façade of “The Greatest Generation,” and reassures the reader that, other than circumstances, there is little that distinguishes individuals from one generation to the next.

In view of the numerous controversies and varied views of General MacArthur’s actions and policies in the Pacific War, it is great to have a balanced and very carefully researched and presented account of a commander who was in it from Japan’s attack on the United States to Japan’s surrender. While dealing fairly with some of the criticisms of the general, Borneman does note his repeated announcements of battles being ended when they were not as well as the hopeless incompetence of his intelligence chief.

If you were among the millions who watched the award-winning HBO series The Pacific, you know the story of the bloody Marine advance as they fought their way across the Pacific.

Based on the combat experiences of author Robert Leckie who fought on Guadalcanal and beyond until he was wounded and evacuated stateside, Leckie chronicles the ferocity of the no-surrender combat practiced by both sides. 

A skilled writer and journalist post-war, Leckie had an eye for details and an ability to set a scene that makes the reader feel part of the action: 

Bouganville; “the Japanese attacked, closing with yells and rifle shots as the Marines repulsed them. One machinegunner needed a tripod, so was firing with the butt braced against his right leg while holding the hot barrel with his left hand. When the tripod arrived and he withdrew his left hand, much of its flesh remained on the… show more.

This is simply one of the finest books to be written on the final critical two years of the Pacific War, with extensive detail on the Japanese side of the conflict and plenty of new insights into the better-known American story. It is a big book, but this was a large conflict both in terms of space, time, and the resources deployed. It was also chiefly a story of amphibious naval warfare, an original and significant development in modern warfare that too often gets understated. By the end of the conflict, the American armed forces had created the shape that they were to employ for the next half-century in projecting power overseas.

Though these stories are actually linked, told over a century and a half through many generations of one family, the characters are so different that what acts as the unifying thread for this book more than anything is its exploration of imperialism’s traumas, perpetrated, experienced, and inherited.

Like my own work that seeks to explore a country’s identity through many different members and eras, Serizawa paints a portrait of Japan before and after the Second World War in breathtaking scope to remind us that events in history have much longer roots and much greater reaches than we recognize. 

Anyone interested in the War in the Pacific will find this collection of 175 photographs showing the variety of interactions of Islanders and foreign servicemen interesting. It goes beyond official military photos (though there are plenty of those) to include photos from Japanese sources and veterans’ personal photographs. The text gives insight into the conditions of war and how Islanders and foreign fighters perceived and dealt with each other. A beautifully produced book.