Love Beyond Survival? Readers share 100 books like Beyond Survival...

You can’t get more “real science" than this book! The author is an engineer who refuses to ask readers to take things on faith if there’s any way he can give them a real-world grounding with the science we already have. 

I loved it because I completely and totally believed it. Weir works within the rules of the real world rather than ignoring them and hoping readers don’t notice, which is what so many books do. All you need to do is believe that a manned mission to Mars is possible, and the rest won’t raise a single “but wait; that wouldn’t happen” eyebrow!

Part sports book, part WWII book, and large part survival story: Hillenbrand's narrative never ceases to astonish. What Louis Zamperini endured adrift in a life raft for six weeks and in POW camps for two years is beyond imagining, and yet Hillenbrand documents it all in harrowing detail. 

But first, Louis is just a troubled kid with a knack for making mischief. Running saves him. He qualifies for the 1936 Olympics and places 5th in the 5,000 meters. His Olympic dreams for 1940 are shattered by the war, but he becomes a bombardier in the Army Air Forces. Louis’s story doesn’t end with his rescue after the war. In the moving final section, Louis finds unexpected redemption and makes a triumphant Olympic return.

I like this book because I strongly identify with Rayford Steele. He is a professional pilot with character flaws and no superpowers. I am no pilot but also a professional with character flaws. And no superpowers.

When the story opens, I want to grab Rayford by the shirt collar and scream, “Don’t do it.” Of course, disaster strikes first, and then—with God’s guidance—Rayford overcomes incredible adversity to lead his Tribulation Force team through the worst seven years in human history. I also like Bruce Barnes, a pastor who built a career as a hypocrite not believing what he preached. Like Rayford, Bruce’s character grows as the adversity grows, and he finds ways to meet every challenge despite his human weaknesses.

Any book featuring a sex trafficking victim is a horror story, and this book chronicles how a master manipulator dished out plenty of gut-wrenching, real-life horror against a vulnerable teenage victim who could have lived next door to me. I don’t like books that make me uncomfortable by hitting close to home. That’s why I liked this book: because the world needs to know about modern-day slavery in all its horror.

It made my top 5 list because Abby found a way to break free of her bondage, and a dedicated Canadian Member of Parliament led the Canadian government into passing helpful legislation. Both were ordinary people in extraordinary situations who found a way to reach beyond their limits and prevail through adversity.

Rasimus was an F-105 pilot who flew 100 missions over North Vietnam early in the war when things were really hot. He tells of the courage it took to fly into such a dangerous environment and of some of the pilots who did it.

George Marrett was in my squadron the year prior to me and we tell of some of the same people. Cheating Death is about search and rescue. Same airplane, different mission. A-1s were taildragger airplanes with a 2,700 horsepower engine, could carry 10,000 pounds of external ordinance, and had two 20mm guns in each wing. It was low and slow compared to a jet and could stay over a survivor for a long time until a rescue was made. The author tells of several exciting rescues of pilots who were shot down deep in enemy territory and explains how it was done.

The Ravens were young Air Force pilots, all volunteers, who flew tiny Cessna O-1 Bird Dog spotter planes through heavy groundfire to identify targets and call in air-strikes during the top-secret war in northern Laos. Their mission was so secret that they wore no uniforms and carried no identification. Fed up with the bureaucracy of the war in Vietnam, these young FACs accepted the 50% casualty rates of what was known as the Steve Canyon Program in return for a life of unrestricted flying and fighting. Devoted to the CIA-sponsored hill tribesmen they supported, the Ravens did their job with extraordinary skill and raw courage. This is their story, brilliantly told in Christopher Robbins. Based on extensive interviews with the survivors, it is a tale of undeniable heroism, blending real-life romance, adventure, and tragedy.

In this novel, Leonard Scott utilizes his experience as a U.S. Army officer to tell a story about five people involved in the Vietnam War. One is an NCO with the 75th Rangers. Another is a rebellious rich girl who joins the Red Cross and volunteers for duty in Vietnam. The third is a company commander for the 75th Rangers, and the fourth is a young North Vietnamese Army Platoon leader. Scott’s book weaves an exceptionally well told saga and became one of my five choices because it captures the essence (or if you will: the grotesque stench) of the war in Vietnam from several perspectives, including that of an enemy soldier.

The original Vietnamese title of this novel was The Fate of Love. The hero is a veteran of the North Vietnamese Army who fought in The War Against the Americans to Save the Nation. He suffers from PTSD and mourns the loss of his fiancee. The novel proceeds as a series of discontinuous episodes as the hero relives traumatic memories.

If you are a serious student of history then you will be fascinated by this book because it tells a story in letters and official documents of how events in Vietnam unfolded the way they did. The book is a history of communications and policy documents between all the key decision-makers from the end of the 2nd World War in 1945 through two more wars, one with the French and another with the United States, ending in 1975. It reminds us how easily things could have swung a different way and, for me, raises many questions. Could thirty years of war have been avoided had there not been a power vacuum in North Vietnam at the end of WW2 when the French military was left in incarceration by the small anti-colonial US occupation force, leading to the outbreak of violence and chaos between Nationalist Vietnamese, Communists posing as Nationalists,… show more.