Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance

Written by Christopher McDougall

Narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith

The best-selling author of Born to Run now travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere. 

After running an ultramarathon through the Copper Canyons of Mexico, Christopher McDougall finds his next great adventure on the razor-sharp mountains of Crete, where a band of Resistance fighters in World War II plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of the Nazi occupation. How did a penniless artist, a young shepherd, and a playboy poet believe they could carry out such a remarkable feat of strength and endurance, smuggling the general past thousands of Nazi pursuers, with little more than their own wits and courage to guide them? 

McDougall makes his way to the island to find the answer and retrace their steps, experiencing firsthand the extreme physical challenges the Resistance fighters and their local allies faced. On Crete, the birthplace of the classical Greek heroism that spawned the likes of Herakles and Odysseus, McDougall discovers the tools of the hero—natural movement, extraordinary endurance, and efficient nutrition. All of these skills, McDougall learns, are still practiced in far-flung pockets throughout the world today.

More than a mystery of remarkable people and cunning schemes, Natural Born Heroes is a fascinating investigation into the lost art of the hero, taking us from the streets of London at midnight to the beaches of Brazil at dawn, from the mountains of Colorado to McDougall’s own backyard in Pennsylvania, all places where modern-day athletes are honing ancient skills so they’re ready for anything. 

Just as Born to Run inspired readers to get off the treadmill, out of their shoes, and into the natural world, Natural Born Heroes will inspire them to leave the gym and take their fitness routine to nature—to climb, swim, skip, throw, and jump their way to their own heroic feats.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9780804194150

Christopher McDougall

Christopher McDougall is author of the internationally bestselling Born to Run, which is being adapted into a TV series, Natural Born Heroes, and Running with Sherman. He lives in rural Pennsylvania and Hawaii.

Reviews for Natural Born Heroes

[danhibbert-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book tremendously, it's a great mix of a number of interesting topics and introduced me to a element of WWII that I knew almost nothing about. It also gave me a interest about finding our more about Crete!

[christineellei · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Okay, I’ve started and deleted this book review several times. Why? Definitely not because I did not like the book … I enjoyed it very much. It’s just that the book is so crammed full of different things I have no idea how to offer a book description.

1. It’s about WWII and how the resistance fighters on Crete foiled Hitler’s attempt to capture the island in “24 hours”.
2. It’s about fitness gurus past and present.
3. It’s about how a rag-tag group of villagers; some British intellectuals and Aussie farm boys bested the Nazi invaders and kidnapped a German general.
4. It’s discusses nutrition idea past and present.
5. It’s about using fascia as opposed to muscle, parkour, martial arts and natural fitness methods.
6. It’s about Lawrence of Arabia, Bruce Lee, Arnaold Schwarzenegger and many other people famous and otherwise.

Intrigued yet?

It sounds like a lot! It is, yet Mr. McDougall makes it work in a well-written, comprehensive and interesting book. Mr. McDougall intersperses the history with examples of ancient and modern fitness techniques and theories that are aimed at the “everyman”. We can all be “heroes”.

In “Born to Run” Mr. McDougall took me to Mexico and introduced me to barefoot runners and ultra-marathoners. In this book he took me to the Greek island of Crete to meet “Natural Born Heroes”. I am not an athlete nor am I a runner so why do I find Mr. McDougall’s books so riveting? He is a natural born storyteller. If you are curious about fitness or if you need a little inspiration this would be great book to pick up. Even if you are not and you just want some interesting history and some background on health, fitness and diet (and the billion dollar industry it has become) it is definitely a very readable and interesting book.

[davido1103 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent blend of history, spy story, mystery, thriller anthropology, physiology. British misfits and Cretan resistance fighters pull off an unprecedented heist: they kidnap a Nazi general out from under the noses of Gestapo, and escape with him across unforgiving terrain.