James A. Sullivan

Perseverance, endurance, bravery, tenacity. All of these describe those who fought in WWII. James Sullivan's latest book is Unsinkable: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of the USS Plunkett.

What first drew me to Unsinkable? The personal stories - the best tales in life are the true ones. And Sullivan has done a fantastic job bringing these five men's stories to life. Their families, homes, hopes, desires, fears, strengths and more are detailed. Sullivan has drawn from many sources such as show more diaries, reports, interviews and a family member. Rather than just an annotation in a dry history book, Sullivan's writing made them 'real' for me as he takes us from enlistment to war to final days.

While I am familiar with the battles of WWII, I learned so much from Unsinkable. Sullivan's descriptions of the Plunkett's role is comprehensive and again, well detailed. Unsinkable takes the listener inside the battles and puts us on the destroyer.

An excellent book, honoring those who fought for our freedom and the ship that carried them. The title is perfect, referring to both ship and men.

I chose to listen to Unsinkable. I find listening to a book immerses me in the story. Even more so for this book. The reader was a favorite of mine - Jacques Roy. His voice is clear, easy to understand, well enunciated and pleasant to listen to with a gravelly undertone. Its calm and suits the subject matter. But, his voice does rise and fall with the emotions and actions. The speed of reading is just right, allowing the listener to take it all in. show less

James Sullivan has produced an extensive family history document, but not really a great naval history. It's clear from the beginning that he is going to try and tell the story of an uncle who was a sailor on the USS Plunkett, but he tries to tell the story of 4 other guys as well, and the history of the ship itself. This results in a disjointed narrative (with random chapters about the present day interspersed) that doesn't do justice to the full stories of either the men or the ship. James show more Bradley does a much better job of telling the life stories of a group of men in [b:Flags of Our Fathers|1063468|Flags of Our Fathers|James D. Bradley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320435740l/1063468._SX50_.jpg|2618496]. There are also times in this book where Sullivan uses slang of the period without explaining what it means. Additionally, I found a few instances where Sullivan would jump from one character to another in the same paragraph, which added confusion. I do think he did a fine job describing the action that resulted in the ship being hit with a bomb. However, after that moment, it felt like he lost interest in the story (most of his characters are off the ship), and was just talking about the role the ship had to play in future actions in the most broad terms because he had to prove this ship was in all the European Theater invasions. show less