My Birthday wasn’t too long ago and @Invoker sent me a copy of one of his favorite books, The Long Walk. I just started reading it and already i can see why he sent it my way. Here is a review by Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.:

Although The Long Walk is well written, that has nothing to do with why it’s a good book. People should read this book because it chronicles perhaps the most extraordinary true story of human endurance in recorded history.

Slavomir Rawicz is unjustly imprisoned by the Communist Russians early in World War II. He is confined to a cell so small that he literally cannot sit, but must sleep by collapsing with his knees against the wall and his feet steeped in his own waste. He is later transported to Siberia by train, and then marched through the cold countryside to a Soviet Gulag, witnessing the death by exposure and exhaustion of other unfortunate captives along the way. In the prison camp he is set in forced labor, kept in horrendous conditions, over-worked, and underfed.

Near the end of his rope, Rawicz and a handful of companions orchestrate a daring and desperate escape, and then proceed to run for their lives, on foot, toward freedom in India—4,000 miles away. Then the fun begins. They must conquer the frozen Siberian tundra, the Gobi desert, the Himalayan Mountains, starvation, the Soviets, and their own inner demons.

Slavomir’s ordeal overshadows every other survival tale I’ve every read, including Admiral Scott’s Polar expedition and Krakauer’s Everest disaster. This is up there with the Donner Expedition in terms of grim conditions and the indomitable human spirit. Trust me. If you’ve got a teenager who’s complaining because they think they have it rough, let ‘em read this one.

I’ve only just begun reading it but already have a feeling i’ll be sending this title out to some of my close friends as gifts.