The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon in Around the World in 80 Books

May 15, 2025 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it liked it

Shelves: author-man, author-white, a-reviewed, a-read-gelesen-2025, landscape-urwald-rainforest, on-hiatus

The only thing I liked about this book (and that merited 3 stars) was the final bit where archaeological finds in the Amazon rainforest of cities, moats and highways are described. I had not known about these. I did not, though, care for them being left till last as a sort of reveal, as if they were the "lost city of Z", a fantasised civilisation, fever dream of early- to mid-20th C. self-styled "explorers". These "explorers", nearly all of them men, stomp off into the rainforest without so much ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 10, 2019 Pam rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-books-read, brazil, nonfiction

AUTHOR Grann, David
TITLE The Lost City of Z
DATE READ 01/09/19
RATING 4/B
GENRE/ PUB D ATE/PUBLISHER / # OF Non-Fic/2005/Random House/319
SERIES/STAND-ALONE SA
CHARACTERS British Explorer Percy Fawcett
TIME/PLACE Early 1900's to 1990's
COMMENTS In the mid 1920's British Explorer Percy Fawcett along with his son Jack went on an expedition to Amazonia -- to find the Lost City of Z. This City was expected to be very deep into the jungles of Brazil. Percy Fawcett believed that this city predated other ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 24, 2013 Jason rated it really liked it

Well, here's another book on exploration and the unknown that I couldn't wait to read, and once I had it in my hands, couldn't put down until it was finished. I experienced a similar feeling while reading the mesmerizing "Over the Edge of the World" about my favorite explorer, Magellan. This one is nearly as good, but just not quite there. Still loved it, though.

David Grann takes a little different an approach when documenting the life, legend, and obsession of Percy Harrison Fawcett, who disapp Well, here's another book on exploration and the unknown that I couldn't wait to read, and once I had it in my hands, couldn't put down until it was finished. I experienced a similar feeling while reading the mesmerizing "Over the Edge of the World" about my favorite explorer, Magellan. This one is nearly as good, but just not quite there. Still loved it, though.

David Grann takes a little different an approach when documenting the life, legend, and obsession of Percy Harrison Fawcett, who disappeared along with his son Jack and Jack's best friend Raleigh in 1925 in the Xinggu region of the Amazon. Grann takes to alternating between chapters involving Fawcett's story, and his own personal quest to get to the bottom of Fawcett's legend and mystery. This tactic works and keeps the proceedings riveting for most of the book, but does get a little tiresome in the last forty pages or so. However, this is a minor quibble when we look at the other redeeming and amazing qualities of this journalistic investigation.

Fawcett is a harrowing figure in exploration history, and I totally understand how his life inspires such obsession and cult figure status. Fawcett was a man of true grit, a man whose singular pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and vindication in the Amazon led him across thousands and thousands of miles of impenetrable jungle. He survived Indian attacks, legions of bugs (and Grann's descriptions of all the ways bugs and other small vermin the jungle can kill you was one of my favorite parts) and 60-foot anacondas, starvation, malaria, dysentery, maggots in leg wounds, and on and on. Why? Because he was an explorer, and his ultimate goal: to find the lost city he called Z.

This was a fascinating and sometimes moving novel. Not only did PHF sacrifice his own life and the life of his son for his singular vision, but his wife Nina sacrificed all she had as well, and at least a hundred others who followed Fawcett into the forest hoping to rescue him met similar fates. His disappearance even served as the catalyst for various cults and mystics heading into Brazil.

For anyone who enjoys history, archaeology, exploration, Indian culture, or just a good old-fashioned mystery, this is a book they won't be able to put down. Great stuff. ...more

Like · see review

Feb 04, 2019 Julie rated it really liked it

Shelves: to-read-own

This one started out gangbusters, crazy fascinating! It did slow a bit and I found myself having to push a bit to finish but felt rewarded in the end. So interesting to think about a time when we were still discovering the world. If you are interested in adventure, anthropology, and real travel, definitely check this book out. David Grann is a singular talent!

Like · see review