The Buzz...About Books

Have you ever dreamed of exploring the Amazon?  Imagined yourself walking through the lush rainforest with strange and beautiful plants and animals all around and meeting people who have had little experience with the outside world? 

Well, this book will cure you of those romantic notions!! Amazonian exploration was dangerous and deadly and (in my humble opinion after reading this book) best experienced from the safety of your armchair or other preferred place of reading! 

In the Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, journalist David Grann investigates the mystery around the disappearance of explorer Percy Fawcett in 1925. Fawcett, accompanied by his eldest son, disappeared in the Amazon in while trying to find proof of an ancient settlement which Fawcett believed had existed and which he had  named "The Lost City of Z".

Fawcett was a well-known South American explorer and had made many contributions to mapping and knowlege of the continent.  His mysterious disappearance was world-wide news and inspired many "Fawcett Freaks" to try to find out what happened to him (many of the "Freaks" also disappearred into the jungle without a trace). 

This fascinating book takes the reader beyond this ill-fated trip by investigating Fawcett's history, his previous explorations in South America and his competing explorers – all of which gives an interesting overview on exploration in the Victorian era. 

Also interwoven through the book is the author's own misguided journey to try to solve Fawcett's disappearance.   As the author was completely unpreparared for travel in the Amazon, it makes for humorous and somewhat nerve-wrecking reading. 

The Lost City of Z has received good reviews in the New York Times, the Guardian and the Globe and Mail.  It is also in development to be made into a film by (and perhaps starring) Brad Pitt.   

The Lost City of Z is also available in other formats and languages:

• audiobook
• large print
• eBook
• eAudiobook
• Spanish (La ciudad perdida de Z)
• Chinese (Shi luo zhi cheng)

After reading the Lost City of Z, you may want to check out some other recently published books about South American exploration:

In Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time , author Mark Adams follows in the footsteps of Hiram Bingham III, the explorer who discovered the ancient Machu Picchu in the Andes Mountains of Peru on July 24, 1911. 

River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's legendary voyage of death and discovery down the Amazon by Buddy Levy.   It is the true story of a legendary sixteenth-century explorer, Francisco Orellana and his search for the "Land of Cinnamon".  Although a horrendous journey, Orellana and his party completed the first known navigation of the Amazon.