Books like Natural Born Heroes

01

Born to Run

Christopher McDougall · Health

Born to Run begins as a personal injury investigation.

A kindred history read.

02

Can't Hurt Me

David Goggins · Memoir

Can't Hurt Me is David Goggins's memoir of escaping an abusive childhood, failing military entrance requirements, becoming a Navy SEAL, and then becoming one of the most accomplished endurance athletes in the world — not through talent or privilege but through a deliberate, painful process of forcing himself past every limit he had.

A kindred history read.

03

The Sports Gene

David Epstein · Science

The Sports Gene is David Epstein's investigation into the science of athletic performance — specifically the question of how much genetics determines who becomes elite.

Both dig into human performance.

04

Running with the Kenyans

Adharanand Finn · Memoir

Running with the Kenyans is Adharanand Finn's account of uprooting his family and moving to Iten, a small town in the Kenyan Rift Valley that has produced more world-class distance runners than anywhere else on earth, to train alongside them and understand why they are so dominant.

A kindred history read.

05

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

Ben Macintyre · History

Eddie Chapman was a safecracker, con man, and professional criminal who became Britain's most remarkable double agent during World War II.

Both dig into world war ii.

06

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Timothy Snyder · History

Bloodlands is Timothy Snyder's account of the territories between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union — principally Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states — where the two regimes' violence overlapped between 1933 and 1945.

Both dig into world war ii.

07

Lost in Shangri-La

Mitchell Zuckoff · History

Lost in Shangri-La tells the story of a 1945 military plane crash in the Baliem Valley of New Guinea — a hidden highland region so remote and unknown to the outside world that the press called it Shangri-La.

Both dig into world war ii.

08

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

Ben Macintyre · History

In 1943, British intelligence planted a dead man on a Spanish beach carrying fabricated documents designed to convince the Germans that the Allied invasion of southern Europe would target Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily.

Both dig into world war ii.

09

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Richard Rhodes · History

Richard Rhodes spent years researching the scientific and political story behind the Manhattan Project, and the result is a work of narrative history that refuses to treat the bomb as either a triumph or a horror to be judged from a comfortable distance.

Both dig into world war ii.

10

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

William L. Shirer · History

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is William Shirer's comprehensive account of Nazi Germany from the early career of Adolf Hitler through the defeat of the Reich in 1945.

Both dig into world war ii.

11

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Erik Larson · History

Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile covers Winston Churchill's first year as British Prime Minister — from May 1940, when he replaced Neville Chamberlain three days after Germany's invasion of the Low Countries, through May 1941.

Both dig into world war ii.

12

The Brain's Way of Healing

Norman Doidge · Science

The Brain's Way of Healing is Norman Doidge's follow-up to The Brain That Changes Itself and extends its central argument: the brain retains significant capacity to reorganize itself throughout life, and this plasticity can be deliberately harnessed to treat conditions that conventional medicine has largely written off as permanent.

Both dig into movement.