Tag: SeaBiscuit

Author Laura Hillenbrand’s Inspiration

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Who knew? Author Laura Hillenbrand, who wrote the book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend, which generated a 2003 movie of the same name, has been a shut-in for years due to the debilitating nature of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) she is suffering.

Author Laura Hillenbrand's book, UnbrokenShe’s coming out with her second non-fiction book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, about Louis Zamperini, who was an Olympic runner, World War II bombardier and a POW. After his plane was shot down, he spent 47 days on a raft in the Pacific Ocean before being captured by the Japanese. He was beaten routinely and starved by his captors. But he survived, and now at the age of 93 continues to work as a motivational speaker.

A story posted a couple days ago on USA Today’s website about the remarkable resolve of this author of inspiring true stories is a must-read. This author of inspiring books is herself an inspiration in her ongoing battle in dealing with the debilitating nature of CFS.

UPDATE, Nov. 14, 2010: Former Washington Times colleague Rick Snider, who now writes for The Examiner in Washington, D.C., filed this column for the newspaper following his interview with author Hillenbrand — Rick Snider: Survivor of the Unthinkable.

‘Secretariat’ and American Optimism

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Great column by Cal Thomas that I read online in the Examiner — Cal Thomas: ‘Secretariat’ triumphs in American optimism.

I’m definitely putting the movie on my “to-do” list, and taking the whole family. I was commenting back and forth on Facebook with former colleague Rick Snider, also of the Examiner, who told me when he saw the movie at an advance screening that he thought it was definitely worth seeing. He said, “Saw advance screening of Secretariat movie out Oct. 8. Very good. If you liked Seabiscuit, you’ll like Secretariat.” Rick should know. He has been covering horse racing for decades — all the Triple Crown races and others, particularly in his home state of Maryland. Here’s his brief review of it on his blog: Go see Secretariat the movie (and please be sure to follow the link on his blog to go to his full review in the Examiner).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftFMenGAd2A&feature=player_profilepage]

We’ll be starting some lists shortly here at InspiredON — for most inspirational movies, books, songs, etc. — and it sounds like this one will go right to the top of that list.

If you see it, come back and post your opinions on it, and also feel free to post some names of movies you would nominate to be on InspiredON’s most inspirational movies list. I’ll bet you could come up with a handful right off the top of your head: ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘Field of Dreams,’ ‘SeaBiscuit,’ ‘Rocky,’ ‘Pay it Forward,’ ‘The Pursuit of Happyness,’ ‘Remember the Titans,’ and so on. Let’s see what kind of a list we can build.