The #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Killers of the Flower MoonIn 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David … narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century.
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Read 12.5.2021
Three takeaways from this: 1. IF I had known about all the bugs and snakes and general icky riffraff of poisonous things BEFORE I had headed off to Brazil on an adventure, I would have NEVER EVER gotten on the plane. ICK. SHUDDER. 2. I wish the narrator had actually LEARNED the pronunciations of the Brazilian places he was reading about. I spent a good part of the book correcting him every single time he butchered a name. Sigh. 3. I don’t want a bacteria that makes your skin fall off. Just sayin’. This was a very good read about very stupid people who were driven by ego and moronics, even the author is a bit of a moron, though I do give him credit for making sure he was really ready for the trip when he left and that he knew when it was time to go home. If only Colonel Fawcett had been that smart, he and his son [and his son’s best friend] would have come home to those who loved them and no one else would have had to die searching for them.
I came across this book searching for something to read by a pool in the Canary Islands. Once I started reading it I couldn’t stop. Its mixture of historical research with a gonzo-journalism approach to describing how the story was uncovered was deeply engrossing. It really brought to life the lost story it tells, of a British Amazonian explorer who went missing searching for a lost city in the Amazon. I had at the time been looking for a narrative style to pull together my own research into my grandfather’s exploits in the second world war into a compelling book. The ‘Lost City of Z; was the key: imitation is sincere flattery.
This book makes you realize how desire can lead to obsession. How obsession can lead to mania. How mania can cost you everything.
What can I say? This book captured and recaptured my imagination over and over throughout. The author brilliantly paints a portrait of the explorer, Percy Fawcett, and provides a detailed backdrop of the world and times the adventurer lived in. I found myself completely submerged in the narrative, as I read about the colonel’s expeditions–oft ill-fated–into the dark, unknown wilds of the Amazon rain forest in his quest to locate a lost city of legend. The detailed descriptions of the perils and obstacles that had to be endured and overcome by the men on these expeditions, partnered with ominous and chilling journal entries from the men themselves, held me in thrall for the duration of the book. I highly recommend it to any lover of adventure and exploration. Many times during the read I felt the old daydreams and fantasies of my childhood being rekindled inside me; a part of me longing to shoulder a pack and strike out into the heart of the unknown.
I found this book sort of boring, but I think I was just expecting something else. I got it on a whim without really knowing what it was. I thought it was going to be less documentary and more adventure.
This book is part memoir, part modern-day adventure. Mr. Grann recounts the life of Percy Fawcett, who in the early 1900’s explored the dangerous Amazonian jungle along the Brazil-Bolivia border. Fawcett was in the rarefied company of other extraordinary explorers such as Richard Burton (who searched for the source of the Nile) and Ernest Shackleton (an early explorer of the Antarctic), all members of the Royal Geographical Society in London. Fawcett’s repeated expeditions into the jungle—along with his amazing ability to survive lethal indigenous tribes, starvation, piranhas, and the particularly ghoulish occurrence of maggots under one’s skin—left him convinced that a mythical city (the Spanish conquistadores called it El Dorado) existed somewhere in the area. His preoccupation would eventually lead to his disappearance in 1925. He was never heard from again. Did the lost city of Z exist? Read the book to find out! A gripping and well-written account of the intersection of compulsion and passion within the human spirit.