Name: The Lost City of Z
ISBN: 9781400078455

The Lost City of Z

A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon. After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century": What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z?In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. But Fawcett, whose daring expeditions helped inspire Conan Doyle's The Lost World, had spent years building his scientific case. Captivating the imagination of millions around the globe, Fawcett embarked with his twenty-one-year-old son, determined to prove that this ancient civilization--which he dubbed "Z"--existed. Then he and his expedition vanished.Fawcett's fate--and the tantalizing clues he left behind about "Z"--became an obsession for hundreds who followed him into the uncharted wilderness.

What Hacker News says

throwup238Oct 2026

I recommend reading accounts of traveling through the Amazon, like The Lost City of Z. The number of pests in rainforests that do horrifying things to the human body is astounding and the botflies are only one of them. Makes me thankful for modern conveniences like pure DEET.

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e40Jan 2025

The Lost City of Z, the book, was fascinating. Highly recommended. Didn’t see the movie.

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hijpDec 2024

I really liked "The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder". It's very well researched and pieced together from conflicting accounts.

After I was finished I decided to look up the author and found out he wrote "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "The Lost City of Z", both of which I really enjoyed! If you like books like Endurance, Unbroken, or A Land So Strange, you'll dig this one.

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uticusJan 2024

Recommended reading: "The Lost City of Z" by David Grann (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Deadly-Obsession-Amazon/dp/...)

Ref also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_City_of_Z for more info about Col. Fawcett and this story.

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dhrApr 2023

Life on Air by David Attenborough is one of my favorites - it's narrated by the man himself.

Any books by David Grann are great to listen to but I particularly enjoyed Killers of the Flower Moon and Lost City of Z.

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joekrillDec 2018

Much fewer than I would like to have! My "to read" list is infinitely longer. Some highlights:

Factfulness by Hans Rosling - amazing book, as recommended by Bill Gates, and I see why. Very timely and important given the current social climate. A must read for literally everyone.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler - I've always been meaning to read some of the classic hardboiled detective novels, and what better place to start than with _the_ classic. Loved it. Very easy read. Looking forward to reading more of these.

Spanish Verb Tenses / Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions by Dorothy Richmond - I've been trying to learn Spanish and these are some of the best workbooks I've found.

Wool by Hugh Howey - A friend kept recommending this and it was so hard to put down once I started. It always kept me wanting more. It was a great journey, but at the very end things were becoming a little obvious, which is probably why I haven't gotten around to reading the other books in the series. But that definitely shouldn't keep anyone from reading it - it was a really great, fun read.

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann - 12 amazing essays, each great in their own way. I didn't want to finish this only because I didn't want to no longer have a story to look forward to! I picked this up after reading his The Lost City of Z, which was also a great read if you like modern adventure stories.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking - I love to reread this every so often. Maybe it's nostalgia?

How Linux Works by Brian Ward - I know Linux well enough, but certain things I never really understood and never bothered to look into. This book helped clarify some of the ways Linux works under-the-hood, and why, among other things. And it wasn't super dense - very approachable. Highly recommended to anyone who uses Linux but doesn't really think of themselves as a "Power User" or even "Intermediate".

Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall - We know so little about sleep, and the research is constantly changing. Randall does a great job of distilling things for the layperson, though. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - I was surprised how much I enjoyed this! What an amazing read. I typically don't enjoy this sort of book where everything seems to have some deeper meaning and it's very "out there" (for lack of a better description). But I couldn't be happier that this was recommended to me. I loved every page.

And I'll thrown in a dud:

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck by Mark Manson - I don't understand why people like this book so much, and I was a little annoyed at myself for reading it all the way through when I should have figured out a few pages in that I was wasting my time. A typical fluffy self-help book with no real substance, I thought. "Do Cool Sht" is another book in a similar vein that I had the foresight to bail on. I guess throwing a curse word in the title is the thing to do these days?

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