Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
The Hero Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Stream / Download

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

This book contains violent and/or sexual content.

The Hero

AuthorLee Child

NarratorJeff Harding

Duration1h 18m

CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, History, General Non Fiction

PublisherHarper Collins

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

In his first work of nonfiction, the creator of the multimillion-selling Jack Reacher series explores the endurance of heroes from Achilles to Bond, showing us how this age-old myth is a fundamental part of what makes us human. He demonstrates how hero stories continue to shape our world - arguing that we need them now more than ever. From the Stone Age to the Greek Tragedies, from Shakespeare to Robin Hood, we have always had our heroes. The hero is at the centre of formative myths in every culture and persists to this day in world-conquering books, films and TV shows. But why do these characters continue to inspire us, and why are they so central to storytelling? Scalpel-sharp on the roots of storytelling and enlightening on the history and science of myth, The Hero is essential reading for anyone trying to write or understand fiction. Child teaches us how these stories still shape our minds and behaviour in an increasingly confusing modern world, and with his trademark concision and wit, demonstrates that however civilised we get, we'll always need heroes.

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

Jack Reacher Series Book 7: Persuader Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 7: Persuader

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 7: Persuader

Author Lee Child

Narrator Kerry Shale

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 7

Duration 5h 30m

Never forgive, never forget. Jack Reacher lives for the moment. Without a home. Without commitment. But he has a burning desire to right wrongs - and rewrite his own agonizing past. Never apologize. Never explain. When Reacher witnesses a brutal kidnap attempt, he takes the law into his own hands. But a cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 6: Without Fail Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 6: Without Fail

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 6: Without Fail

Author Lee Child

Narrator Kerry Shale

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 6

Duration 5h 36m

No job, no ID, no last known address. But he never turns down a plea for help. Now a woman tracks him down. A woman serving at the very heart of US power. A woman who needs Reacher's assistance in her new job. Her job? Protecting the Vice-President of the United States. Her problem? Someone wants the VP dead.

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 3: Tripwire Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 3: Tripwire

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 3: Tripwire

Author Lee Child

Narrator Garrick Hagon

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 3

Duration 15h 48m

For Jack Reacher being invisible has become a habit. He spends his days digging swimming pools by hand and his nights as the bouncer in the local strip club in the Florida Keys. He doesn't want to be found. But someone has sent a private detective to seek him out. Then Reacher finds the guy beaten to death with his fingertips sliced off. It's time...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 20: Small Wars Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 20: Small Wars

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 20: Small Wars

Author Lee Child

Narrator Kerry Shale

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 20

Duration 1h 17m

In this new ebook exclusive short story, #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Lee Child goes back to 1989, when Jack Reacher is serving as an officer in the military police. A young lieutenant colonel, in a stylish handmade uniform, roars through the damp woods of Georgia in her new silver Porsche - until she meets a very tall soldier with a broken-d...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 1: Killing Floor Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 1: Killing Floor

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 1: Killing Floor

Author Lee Child

Narrator Dick Hill

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 1

Duration 14h 54m

Killing Floor is the first book in the internationally popular Jack Reacher series. It presents Reacher for the first time, as the tough ex-military cop of no fixed abode: a righter of wrongs, the perfect action hero. Jack Reacher jumps off a bus and walks fourteen miles down a country road into Margrave, Georgia. An arbitrary decision he's about t...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 16: Second Son Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 16: Second Son

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 16: Second Son

Author Lee Child

Narrator Kerry Shale

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 16

Duration 1h 14m

Ever wondered what early experiences shaped Reacher's explosive career as butt-kicker supreme, the one-man guided-missile battler for justice? In this original new story, Lee Child looks back on an incident in his hero Jack Reacher's teenage years as the younger son of a tough career US Marine, on a faraway military base in the Pacific.

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 11: Bad Luck and Trouble Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 11: Bad Luck and Trouble

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 11: Bad Luck and Trouble

Author Lee Child

Narrator Jeff Harding

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 11

Duration 12h 44m

The events of 9/11 changed Jack Reacher's drifter life in a practical way. In addition to his folding toothbrush, he now needs to carry photo ID to get around. Yet he is still as close to untraceable as a human being in America can get. So when a member of his old Army unit manages to get a message to him, he knows it has to be deadly serious. The...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 5: One Shot Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 5: One Shot

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 5: One Shot

Author Lee Child

Narrator Jeff Harding

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 9

Duration 12h 51m

A lone gunman unleashes pandemonium when he shoots into a crowd of people in a public plaza in Indiana. Five people are killed in cold blood, shot through the head. But he leaves a perfect trail of evidence behind him, and soon the local police chief tracks him down. After his arrest, the shooter's only words are, 'Get Jack Reacher for me.' What co...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 19: Not A Drill Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 19: Not A Drill

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 19: Not A Drill

Author Lee Child

Narrator Kerry Shale

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 19

Duration 1h 13m

The brand new Jack Reacher short story, published as a digital exclusive. The tiny town of Naismith has nothing going for it - except the start of a wilderness trail through Maine's ancient forests. But one day the trail is suddenly closed by county police. No reason is given. Rumours start - is there something in the woods that no one must see? Th...

View Book
Jack Reacher Series Book 4: The Visitor Cover

Jack Reacher Series Book 4: The Visitor

Author: Lee Child

Jack Reacher Series Book 4: The Visitor

Author Lee Child

Narrator Kerry Shale

SeriesJack Reacher, Book 4

Duration 3h 37m

Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook have a lot in common. Both were army high-flyers. Both were acquainted with Jack Reacher. Both were forced to resign from the service. Now they're both dead. Found in their own homes, naked, in a bath full of paint. Apparent victims of an army man. A loner, a smart guy with a score to settle, a ruthl...

View Book