Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen,   ISBN:9780307266309

Customer Rating: 

This book will definitely motivate you to get outside and run. It's a great story with a little bit of evolutionary theory thrown in as well; such as why humans stand upright and why we can run for a hundred miles.

Customer Rating: 

An enjoyable to read book that never gets boring. The 50-mile race in Tarahumara county and the build up to it keep the interest high, and the information intermingled within is interesting also.
No surprise to me that people should quit spending big bucks on goofy running shoes. I am sure God knew how to make feet if we just learn how to use them properly. I have never seen any other animal on earth think they need special shoes just to run.
Anyway, it's a good book. Interesting information combined with a very good story of a special race.

Customer Rating: 

This book is a must read for anyone with foot pain, back pain, or knee pain who likes to exercise and or run. Not only is it helpful, but also a really interesting read. I could not put it down. The Copper Canyon Indians are fascinating people,as are all the people who run extreme marathons, and the author tells a good story. I may never run a marathon,but since reconnecting with my (bare) feet, I have no more plantar fasciitis or back pain. My workouts are once again a pleasure.

Customer Rating: 

Not a bad book however i felt the author went off on tangents for too long about things that didnt, to me, seem essential to the books purpose. I expected a interesting book about a hidden tribe and their world away from ours, however, the book talks a little about the hidden tribe, a little about science behind running, a little about marathons, a little about shoe design and a little about alot of other things.

Customer Rating: 

McDougall delivers in this great pop anthropology, a worthy addition to the canon of "running lit."

At the risk of making too simple a comparison to another book based in the Americas, Born to Run delivered in a way that I felt that this year's much-heralded The Lost City of Z did not. Grann's personal connection to the story that drives Z - the doomed final Amazon journey of explorer Percy Fawcett - is strained and often devolves into extrinsic introspection and autobiography. Fawcett's mystery somehow becomes Grann's memoir and the work suffers as a whole.

By contrast, McDougall inserts himself in the story of the Tarahumara only to the extent necessary to act as conduit to their incredible story. His experiences among them resonate through his storytelling.

The book combines reflections on running - both in and outside the context of our own calcified running culture - with amateur but not amateurish anthropology. The obvious questions: (why do these people run like this?) will soon give way to the book's more insightful and unexpected questions (why do any of us run? what does our running say about our culture? what do we value? how do we express that?)

The connectedness is real. Everything is working toward the same end: revealing those common threads of human nature (both physically and socially), and exploring how culture fashions those threads into the variegated fabrics of our distinct societies.

McDougall is really working at a high level here. This great story has found its teller. Highly recommended.